Newsweek's Clift Says Press Don't Care About Romney's Mormonism Hours Before Mag Reveals Cover Story On It

June 5th, 2011 4:58 PM

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift said on PBS's "McLaughlin Group" Friday that the press really aren't interested in Mitt Romney being a Mormon.

This amazingly transpired roughly 24 hours before her magazine revealed a June 13-20 cover story about Romney entitled "The Mormon Moment: How the Outsider Faith Creates Winners" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, HOST: You see Mormonism blocking Romney?

ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: I think Pat’s describing himself as the candidate that the Republicans are looking for.

PAT BUCHANAN: A younger me!

CLIFT: Run, Pat. A younger you, exactly. I think if you look at the stories that were written about Mitt Romney’s announcement you really have to search to find anything about Mormons. I think, you know, we had that discussion four years ago, and frankly I think now that we've elected Barack Obama, I don't think you can flatly say anybody’s going to be disqualified because of their religion or their ethnicity.

The "McLaughlin Group" is typically recorded late Friday afternoon or early evening.

On Saturday at 8:04PM, the Daily Beast released the following picture for Newsweek's upcoming issue:

You really can't make this stuff up!