Since Mitt Romney has no skeletons (in his closet or elsewhere), his adversaries have attacked him for "improper" treatment of his dog, the fact that he and his family are "too" perfect, and for being on the board of directors of Marriott, which allows guests to buy pay-per-view porn in some of its hotel rooms. David French from Evangelicals for Mitt explores the absurdity of this latest attack. He begins by mentioning that Thompson lobbied for a cable company that sells soft core porn and for teamsters with ties to the mob. He says that using these facts to tie Thompson to the porn industry or to organized crime is absurd. However, he continues:
The idea that a board member of a multi-billion dollar company has any input into the vendor contracts of its franchisees is almost hilarious. Quite simply, that is not what board members do (and are often actually barred from such micromanagement by corporate governing documents). They have about as much influence over individual vendor contracts as lobbyists do over the cable lineup or the historic mob ties of their clients (which is virtually none).
French, a Harvard Lawyer with extensive experience working with large corporations would know.
Unfortunately, not everyone in politics is as honest and reasonable as David French. Apparently, the generally noble and conservative-friendly organizations that focus on policy rather than candidates, Focus on the Family and it's D.C. Lobbying arm, the Family Research Council, have decided to take sides in the Republican primaries.
According to Max Blumenthal from The Nation, while these organizations flatly deny supporting any candidate, they have made significant efforts to provide damage control for Fred with respect to the recent articles about his lobbying for pro-abortion firms in 1991. Additionally, they've made significant efforts to paint Romney as a porn profiteer. Influential voices from Focus on the Family called Mitt's failure to stop the porn at Marriott "extremely disturbing" and questioned whether Mitt would "turn a blind eye" to America's pornography problem if elected. Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council said that Romney must "take some responsibility" for the porn provided by Marriot.
These statements are not only misleading, but they must be considered insincere. They are irresponsible and fly in the face of the known facts. First, no contracts for television programming even happened while Mitt was on Marriott's board. The deals were struck before Romney arrived and new deals were struck after Romney had left. Second, we don't have any minutes from the board meetings Romney attended. For all we know, Romney regularly opposed the policy (he was more likely concentrating on building Marriott's business, but the fact is we simply don't know!). Third, as David French so eloquently explains, as a member of the board Mitt could not have stopped it anyway.
Mitt not stopping Marriott from allowing guests to view porn in their hotel rooms is not "disturbing." His record and message make the "turn a blind eye argument" absurd. And there is absolutely no reason to think Mitt should take any responsibility for Marriott's actions in this regard.
4 comments:
Nice work, Slick. Hope you're neither William Jefferson Clinton nor any relative thereof. Your morality sounds nothing like the real Slick Willie.
Funny.
The Salt Lake City newspaper owned by Mitt's own church disagrees with you and David French.
The Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah, is a daily newspaper owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to Editor John Hughes, Deseret News editorials are "written within the framework of values and principles basic to the church."
http://deseretnews.com/sesqui/175013763.html
DESERET MORNING NEWS
Salt Lake City, Utah
July 10, 2007
(Editorial)
The nasty taint of porn
Pornography taints everything it touches. Mitt Romney should have understood that. So should the Marriott Corp. and other hotel owners who offer hard-core movies in hotel rooms.
Romney caught a bit of flack last week because he spent nearly 10 years on the Marriott board and yet never tried to reverse the company's policy of providing pornography on demand, something J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr., defended in a 2000 letter as being economically important. The corporation controls only a few of the hotels with its name on them.
For a presidential candidate who has railed against pornography, this is not entirely insignificant. Even if the subject never came up at a board meeting, one can argue that at least part of the $25,000 plus stock he was paid annually for his board membership came from the money some hotel guests paid for access to the films.
Make no mistake about pornography's influence on society. A recent report from the American Psychological Association drew strong ties between pornography's pervasive influence and the "sexualization" of girls and women. This, the report said, has resulted in greater societal sexism; "fewer girls pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; increased rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence; and an increased demand for child pornography."
Romney seemed to understand this when he told graduates at the Christian-owned Regent University that pornography poisons "our music and movies and TV and video games."
But it is indeed lucrative.
Interestingly, several hotel chains have decided to forego the extra money out of a sense of moral obligation. The Web site cleanhotels.com helps travelers locate these. The site includes what it calls, "The Clean Hotels Pledge." Among other things, this pledge recognizes, "the addictive nature of pornography" ... "that marriages, families and careers have been devastated because individuals have developed an addiction to pornography after being lured into viewing a pornographic movie in the privacy of their hotel room," and that children can accidentally be exposed to images that "can have a lasting negative effect."
That lasting negative effect can be like the stains you get from playing with a barrel of paint. Even if you don't like the color, it tells the tale of where you've been.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,680197653,00.html
Anonymous,
By the way, the Deseret News writer who penned this story is not speaking authoritatively on behalf of Mitt's church. He's a writer with a right to his opinion. The writer didn't articulate differences with many of Slick's arguments. So, the church-based indictment of Mitt's activities has not arrived as you suggest. LDS and other people of faith already are figuring out that Mitt will be the greatest advocate of family values. Fred and the rest can only wish (if they do at all) to project the clean image of Mitt's family. His life and family success speak for themselves.
Pornography taints everything it touches. Mitt Romney should have understood that. So should the Marriott Corp. and other hotel owners who offer hard-core movies in hotel rooms.
The Deseret News writer is correct in the point: [Mitt] "should have understood that." I believe he did. Yet, as Slick and David French pointed out, his capacity to enact change in that and many other business segments was surely limited.
Quite honestly, he likely knew that Marriott peddled porn. Yet, they also serve alcohol in their restaurants. Mitt's religion is opposed to drinking. I'm sure Marriott operates hotel casinos in Vegas. Again, his church is opposed to that. Mitt is certainly personally opposed to these activities on a moral basis. Will he be criticized for these "unprincipled" activities next?
Most Americans have no problem with drinking and gambling. Sadly, millions also have no problem with pornagraphy. Yet, now he's taking grief for political reasons as Thompson's crew tries to cast him as a porn-tolerant, even porn-encouraging executive. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What do you say about the arguments French makes against Thompson? Thompson "should have understood" that cable companies make more $ from their porn-based operations (as a % of revenue) than Marriott Corp does from theirs. Does that make Thompson a porn advocate? Of course not! However, if such a irrational jump of logic applies to Mitt's activities with Marriott, it's only fair to create similar conclusion (albeit equally irrational) to Fred.
Anonymous-
As Nealie pointed out, your initial claim is flatly false. Rather, one opinion writer, like the folks at Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council irresponsibly pointed a finger at Mitt for the sins of Marriott's franchisees without considering the facts.
The great error they make is claiming Mitt "should have known" or must "take some blame". These statements attack Mitt directly when, to date, we have no evidence of Mitt's actions or apathy regarding Marriott's in-room porn. WE DO NOT HAVE THE MINUTES OF THE MEETINGS HE ATTENDED. This means we have no idea whatever whether he openly opposed the policy or not--we know he was personally opposed. These attacks are purely based in speculation. Obviously, this makes them irresponsible at best.
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