Last night, David Schuster was sitting in for Tucker on MSNBC – the television was on in the gym, I’m not a regular Tucker watcher – and he had on Bill Press and the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson. Much of the discussion was about how Romney had slighted atheists. (The transcript isn’t up yet, but will eventually be here.)
It’s amazing how many folks in the media have focused in on the lack of mention of any word of atheists, and who now act as if Romney has committed some great crime. Today’s lead Post editorial: “Where Mr. Romney most fell short, though, was in his failure to recognize that America is composed of citizens not only of different faiths but of no faith at all and that the genius of America is to treat them all with equal dignity.”
(I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that atheists are wildly disproportionately represented in the ranks of the MSM. Don’t know this for sure, but I figure the folks who are most likely to start pounding the table about atheists’ exclusion are atheists themselves.)
In retrospect, that’s something I appreciated about the speech. He made one quick run-through of some faiths and what he admired about Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims. And he must have known it would bring calls of “but what about my beliefs! He didn’t even mention my religion!” We’re a touchier country today, quicker to take offense.
This “You forgot about me, and by not mentioning me you’ve made me a victim!” whining is a pathetic and unflattering position to take, that usually lessens the one making that argument. I wonder if that move by Romney was deliberate.