A few days ago on The McLaughlin Group one of the stranger blow-ups we've seen lately came when O'Donnell began discussing Mitt Romney's so-called "Faith" speech. Seemingly out of nowhere, O'Donnell launched into a full-scale attack on Mormonism:
O'DONNELL: Here's the problem. He dare not discuss his religion. And he fools people like Pat Buchanan, who should know better. 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 --
BUCHANAN: Are you saying that his Mormonism disqualifies him from being president of the United States?
O'DONNELL: I'm saying he's got to answer -- when he was 30 years old --
BUCHANAN: He does not have to answer.
O'DONNELL: -- and he firmly believed in the faith of his father that black people are 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 his father, how about the faith of his great- grandfather, who had five wives?
BUCHANAN: Well, look, my great-grandfather had slaves, and I don't believe in slavery.