May 13, 2007
Mitt Romney Wants To Re-Tool Washington
Mike Wallace Interviews The Contender For The GOP Presidential Nomination
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Romney On Abortion
Only On The Web: Mike Wallace talks to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about his changing positions on abortion
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Romney On The Iraq War
Only On The Web: Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, discusses his views on the war in Iraq with Mike Wallace.
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Romney On Religion
Only On The Web: Former Mass. governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks to Mike Wallace about Mormonism and his close family ties.
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Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has raised more money than any other Republican candidate. (CBS)
Willard Mitt Romney grew up the youngest of four in Bloomfield Hills, a posh suburb of Detroit. His parents, both Mormons, raised their children in that faith and today he is still a devout Mormon, who doesn’t drink, smoke nor swear.
"One out of three people would worry about you as president because you are a Mormon. Why?" Wallace asks.
"There is part of the history of the church’s past that I understand is troubling to people," Romney says. "Look, the polygamy, which was outlawed in our church in the 1800s, that’s troubling to me. I have a great-great grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert. And so he took additional wives as he was told to do. And I must admit I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy."
He believes that Americans want a leader who is a person of faith. The particulars of that faith are irrelevant. What matters, he says, are values.
"What’s at the heart of my faith is a belief that there’s a creator. That we’re all children of the same God," he says. "And that fundamentally the relationship you have with your spouse is important and eternal."
"This isn’t just some temporary convenience here on earth, but we’re people that are designed to live together as male and female and we’re gonna have families. And that, there’s a great line in the Bible that children are an inheritance of the Lord and happy is he who has or hath his quiver full of them," Romney says.
And Romney’s quiver is very full: 60 Minutes met all 22 members of his family at the Romney lake house in New Hampshire.
Romney has been married to his wife Ann for 38 years. His five sons range in age from 37 to 25. There are five daughters-in-law and ten grandchildren.
Romney mandates that they all get together at least twice a year. This time, at the lake house, they came together to celebrate Ann’s birthday. She is known as the CFO – Chief Family Officer.
Mitt and Ann fell in love in high school in Bloomfield Hills. She converted from Episcopal to Mormon while Mitt did missionary work in France for over two years. But later he joined her at Brigham Young University. And while he was away, Mitt says, he was terrified that he’d lose her to somebody else.
"You get all these Mormons out there with strict prohibition against premarital sex. They’re young and they’re attractive, the hormones work very well and people decide it’s time to get married," Romney says.
Asked if he had premarital sex with Ann, Romney tells Wallace, "No, I'm sorry. We don’t get into those things. The answer is no."
Three months after returning from France in 1969, Ann and Mitt were married. In 1975, Romney got joint degrees from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School and he became a business consultant in Boston while Ann raised their five boys.
In 1998, Ann began to feel numbness in her right leg. It was multiple sclerosis.
But for over a year, the numbness and weakness progressed up her right side and debilitating fatigue set in. "I was no good. I couldn’t shop. I couldn’t cook. It took too much energy to even open the mail. And at that point I went into a very deep depression. I know you know all about that," she says.
"It was at that point that Mitt said, 'As long as you’re here with me everything’s ok and we can do everything together. What matters is that you’re with me.' And it made me turn the switch and say 'It’s time to start crawling out of this hole,'" Ann adds.
So she started riding horses, and she says with the help of both western and eastern medicine, her MS has gone into remission. Both Ann and Mitt agreed that her disease would not stop Romney from running for president.
"We’re now in for keeps," Romney says. "If I'm lucky enough to become president of the United States, the country has to come first."
"I’m gonna be fine," Ann adds.
Their five boys support their decision.
"Three of you went to Harvard Business School, one to medical school. All married. Nobody seems to have rebelled, gone off the rails. How come?" Wallace asks.
"Where a lot is given a lot is expected. So we have to live up to that standard," Craig Romney tells Wallace.
While all of them have served their church doing missionary work around the world, their answers vary about putting on a uniform and going to war.
"I feel guilty having not done it," Josh Romney tells Wallace.
"I’ve seen a lot and read a lot that has made me say, 'My goodness, I hope I never have to do that,'" Ben Romney says.
"Not one agreed or thought about serving in the military," Wallace remarks.
"There are other sacrifices to make as well. And I hope to be able to make a sacrifice of that caliber at some point in my life," Matt Romney says.
"Did you ever serve in the armed forces?" Wallace asks Mitt Romney.
"I did not," Romney replies.
Why not?
"I was at college. Then I went off and served my church for two and a half years in a mission," Romney replies.
And because of his high lottery number, he was never drafted to serve in Vietnam, something he says he regrets to this day.
Produced By Ruth Streeter
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See all 262 CommentsDidn't he say somewhere that Americans have to sacrifice more? Or was that McCain? Either way, I thought offshoring was making Americans sacrifice... or the obscenely high cost of education. Never mind gas when nobody wants to put in light rail despite all those commercials pertaining to light rail and/or "clean coal", of which America has more of it than the middle east has oil... That isn't sacrifice enough, especially in a land whose corporate and political leaders don't seem to know what to do with all these problems?
Or is it an embarrassment to be intelligent in America; where dumb is played up and the geeks and nerds knocked down?
Even John McCain is a superior candidate, but he's proven himself fairly dim and clearly out of touch as well. He thinks Americans wouldn't pick lettuce for even $50/hr. Whatever. He's wasting his time. 2 down, 8 to go. Make that 9, if the blab about Republicans liking Hillary is even remotely real (they loathed her in the early '90s with her liberal plans, so why like her now?)
Yeah...like THAT will ever happen!
Yeah...like THAT will ever happen!
Yeah...like THAT will ever happen!
Wallace is a great suppurating southern end of a porcine alimentary canal. As are all of you media types, who think you populate a moral plane well above the rest of us, and from which you peer down on us all from a very great height. God-like, you believe justified of every intrusion, every implied insult, every mental excrescence.
You "main stream media" people are a disgrace to journalism, to the nation, and to your fathers, if you know who they are.
Wallace is a great suppurating southern end of a porcine alimentary canal. As are all of you media types, who think you populate a moral plane well above the rest of us, and from which you peer down on us all from a very great height. God-like, you believe justified of every intrusion, every implied insult, every mental excrescence.
You "main stream media" people are a disgrace to journalism, to the nation, and to your fathers, if you know who they are.
This is the reason I don't even watch *any* TV news shows anymore.
It would be nice if reporters like Mike Wallace would focus on the "issues" that each candidate has.
Mit isn't running for "Pastor-in-Chief" he's running for "Commander-in-Chief".
Mit has tremdous cross-functional experience would make a great President for all Americans, he is very moderate.
If Americans liked Ronald Reagan they are going to LOVE Mit Romney..........
It would be nice if reporters like Mike Wallace would focus on the "issues" that each candidate has.
Mit isn't running for "Pastor-in-Chief" he's running for "Commander-in-Chief".
Mit has tremdous cross-functional experience would make a great President for all Americans, he is very moderate.
If Americans liked Ronald Reagan they are going to LOVE Mit Romney..........
ENERGY policy: Big Oil
FOREIGN policy: AIPAC
HEALTHCARE: Pharma
FISCAL policy: Wall St booms while the middle class starves
NATIONAL DEFENSE: perpetual war that will only profit the corporate war machine at the expense of the troops, their families and the hundreds of thousands of innocents that get slaughtered around the world because of our policies.
EPA: Exxon-Mobil Protection Agency
EDUCATION: why ?, best to keep the masses stupid and gullible ..
RELIGION: best to educate with myth, more pliable than the truth -
... the middle class is insignificant to the Republican Party - they seek a ruling elite and a vast working poor which consolidates wealth and power for their corporate masters, leaving very little for "we the people". America is quickly becoming a third world country riddled with debt under Republican greedership. Is this the way of life we want to protect ? Is this the America we grew up with ? Time to wake up sheeple !
After 8 years of "git'er done" George, I would be surprised if, whoever the Republican candidate is, they don't loose by a landslide to the Democrats. I think America has finally realised that "Praise the Lord" and pass as many laws as you possibly can to benefit the guy with $10,000,000 in the bank isn't really looking out for the common good of all Americans.
Also, if these clowns are the "values" candidate, we have a right to determine if they are hypocrites or not BEFORE an election.
Mike, keep asking those questions that are meant to reveal the real candidate!
Bush is the Commander and Chief.
Anyone who questions him is a traitor.
Anyone who critisizes him is a traitor.
His record of success in Iraq speaks for itself.
Never again, not ever, not one more time, will I vote for another Republican for any office, state or federal.
I am not impressed with any of the current field of 2008 wannabes regardless of party.
I am looking for the dark horse.
I believe I am not alone...
Posted by lackofperception5
I didn't and I wouldn't!!! Reagan was a king size a**hole!
Posted by perception5 at 08:58 AM : May 11, 2007
This posted by the party that spent MILLIONS trying to find out that Clinton got a BJ! Your a freakin hypocrite.
While Mike Wallace did a pretty good job of interviewing LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley - he should have stayed "retired" for this one.
Posted by JohnKuhn2
Then you must know that your fearless majority leader President Harry Reid is a Moron, oops a Mormom, too.
He lied about everything he possibly could to become governor of Massachusetts. Then he started fundraising for president by bashing his own state. Opportunistic, fake, liar. (Is "Mitt" a nickname for "George?")
if it is ok for fascist nazi islamic muslims to kill all non muslims everywhere.... is it ok for the non muslims to kill all fascist nazi islamic muslims???
Wouldn't killing 5.1 BILLION people (the number of non muslims in the world) be the very definition of barbarism???
Or is it fascist nazi islam%u2019s way of solving global warming???
Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp
But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.
"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.
Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.
The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
OK, so how many of the members of the "Mormon" church have you met, and how many do you know on a personal basis? There's a lot of diversity in such a large organization. Your outrageous comments clearly identify you as a bigot and Mormon-phobe - and one who knows nothing about the Mormon Church or its people.
, Shouldn't you be attacking Mormans ??? -- You're Christians murdered them ran them out of Missouri & Illinois to Utah & orginized death squads to murder them & run them out of Utah.
--- DON'T YOU CALL THEM THE ANTI-CHRIST ?? ---
Hezbollah builds a Western base
From inside South America%u2019s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17874369/
Sources: Terrorists find haven in South America
Deep in the heart of South America, the region where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet has some of the most porous borders -- and busiest black markets -- in the world.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/11/07/inv.terror.south/
Part 1: Hezbollah south of the border
CIUDAD DEL ESTE, at the triple border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay - This is the way savage globalization ends - at least 20,000 shops, stalls, tin shacks and mini-malls crammed into 15 blocks selling everything under the (tropical) sun. There's Little Asia - thousands of Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and Koreans. But above all there are some 20,000 Arabs of Syrian and mostly Lebanese descent (another 12,000 live in the Brazilian resort of Foz do Iguacu, across the Friendship Bridge).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HH03Aa01.html
Hezbollah: A Case Study of Global Reach
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=132
Maybe he would say "don't judge me on what religion I am ...........but instead judge me on the content of my character"
If America is ever going to evolve into the greatest country in the history of our planet we need to get away from judging people on:
1. color of their skin
2. what religion they are .....or not
3. what Party they belong to.
When electing our political leaders shouldn't it "really" be on the "issues"???
What do you think?
Maybe he would say "don't judge me on what religion I am ...........but instead judge me on the content of my character"
If America is ever going to evolve into the greatest country in the history of our planet we need to get away from judging people on:
1. color of their skin
2. what religion they are .....or not
3. what Party they belong to.
When electing our political leaders shouldn't it "really" be on the "issues"???
Is there anything wrong with this approach?
Really ?
I can think of a lot of things worse than polygamy.
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