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The Salt Lake Tribune has a provocative first write-up of Senator Reid’s BYU appearance today. “I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it.” Fair enough.
But then:
“In the past years we’ve had some very prominent members of the church like Ezra Taft Benson who are really right-wing people. Members of the church are obedient and followers in the true sense of the word, but these people have taken members of the church down the path that is the wrong path,” he said.
I would like to see if there is greater clarification in his remarks as to who “these people” are. I’m sure he’s just referring to a mundane political disagreement but it sounds like his words could easily be taken out of context. That would be unfortunate. He’s not calling President Benson a “phony prophet” is he?
But, I’m glad he didn’t shy away from being partisan. His talk promises to be an interesting read.
UPDATE: Frank Staheli has a first hand account of Sen. Reid’s speech. He was impressed.
UPDATE 2: The Deseret Morning News has more thorough coverage on Sen. Reid’s speech. While there were no protests, there was some unfortunate boorish behavior, “One person did walk out between the end of Reid’s speech and the traditional closing prayer and called out that students should not be deceived by Reid.”
Tags: byu, Ezra Taft Benson, Harry Reid
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9 October 2007 at 6:54 pm
Trevor
“He’s not calling President Benson a “phony prophet” is he?”
That is EXACTLY how I read Ried’s comments about late Pres Benson. Notice he did not even dignify Benson with his title?
9 October 2007 at 8:13 pm
David Grua
I really doubt that Sen. Reid was calling Pres. Benson a “phony prophet.” Reid wasn’t making any kind of statement concerning Benson’s prophetic calling (although I assume that Reid would readily testify that Benson was God’s prophet). Rather, Reid was making a commentary on Benson’s very public and vocal far right political stance and the tendency of rank and file LDS to interpret the political stance of their leaders as God’s political stance.
10 October 2007 at 10:01 am
David
The “phony prophet” comment was a reference to Senator Reid’s recent attack on Rush Limbaugh.
Reid and other Democrats took some of Limbaugh’s comments on a anti-war activist who falsely claimed to be war veteran out of context in the most unfair way possible. Fair play suggests the same could be done to Sen. Reid (not that we should) .
10 October 2007 at 1:06 pm
Seth R.
It should be noted that Pres. Benson largely dropped the John Birch rhetoric upon assuming the mantle of President of the Church.
10 October 2007 at 1:08 pm
JKC
“Notice he did not even dignify Benson with his title?”
Which title? If your referring to his title as church president, probably because he wasn’t talking about Ezra Taft Benson as President of the Church, but Ezra Taft Benson pre-church presidency acting as a political figure in the President’s cabinet.
It isn’t a secret that Elder Benson’s political activities were divisive in the church and that his fellow apostles thought he was out of line. You may question Senator Reid’s propriety for saying so at a press conference, but you cannot disagree with his assessment of Elder Benson’s political activities without also disagreeing with a good portion of the 12 and the first presidency at the time.
11 October 2007 at 12:15 pm
Frank Staheli
The “right-wing” comments he made, as well as some supposed comments about evangelicals being hateful, did not occur during the BYU speech. I have yet to discover when or if he made the comments about evangelicals, but the comments about President Benson and right wingers were made at a press conference following the speech.
11 October 2007 at 12:35 pm
David
Frank,
Thanks for the clarification.
That became apparent in the following news stories which I included in a later post.
Do you know where the press conference was held? Was it at BYU, I presume?
12 October 2007 at 5:36 pm
danithew
I don’t think Harry Reid overstepped his bounds. There are other ways to interpret what he said. Honestly, I think he said things the way they have been … some Church leaders (among them Ezra Taft Benson) have been very partisan in their political views and have allowed partisan expression to enter their talks from the pulpit.