Lawrence O'Donnell erupts on The McLaughlin Group [View All]

[brooklynite]

Today's panel was discussing the success or failure of Romney's religion speech, and were giving it various degrees of praise or criticism, but all in polite language. But, when the discuss turned to the section on Romney's actual religious beliefs, O'Donnell let loose:

This was the worst speech, the worst political speech of my lifetime, because, this man stood there and said to you "This is the faith of my fathers". And you and none of these commentators who liked this speech realize that the faith of his father is a racist faith. As of 1978 it was an officially racist faith, and for political convenience in 1978, it switched. And it said "okay, black people can be in this church". He believes if he believes the faith of his fathers that black people are black because in Heaven they turned away from God. In this demented Scientology-like notion of what was going on in Heaven before the creation of the Earth...I'm saying he's got to answer when he was 30 years old and he firmly believed in the faith of his fathers that blacks were inferior, when did he change his mind. Did the religion have to tell him to change his mind? And when he talks about the faith of this fathers, how about the faith of his great grandfather who had five wives?...his religion is based on the work of a lying, fraudulent criminal named Joseph Smith who was a racist, who was pro-slavery...."

Not your usual Sunday morning discussion...