The right has endlessly talked, mocked, lied about, discussed, and made great issue of President Obama’s religious beliefs, ancestry, race, and heritage.

Shouldn’t the Republican candidate for president be up to facing the same “scrutiny”?

From The Washington Post:

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) is causing a bit of a stir with his comment that Mitt Romney’s family came from a “polygamy commune.”

In an interview with the Daily Beast on Thursday, the outspoken governor suggested Romney could identify with Latinos better if he talked about his family’s roots in Mexico.

It’s “kinda ironic, given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy,” Schweitzer said. (Schweitzer noted that women, in particular, object to polygamy, or the practice of having multiple wives.)

[...] The truth is that Romney should be able to draw on his personal history for ammunition to fight back on issues such as the Latino vote and his image as a fat-cat businessman. But in both cases, fighting back would require reminding people that he’s a Mormon.

In much the same way that Romney doesn’t talk much about his Mexican roots because of the polygamy connection (detailed here in a great story from last year by The Post’s Nick Miroff), he also rarely speaks of his record of charitable giving — in large part, it would seem, because the vast majority of the donations went to his church.

Romney has given more than $11 million to charity over the past 12 years, but 80 percent of it went to the Mormon Church, according to a recent Boston Globe report. So even if Romney wanted to talk about the $1.8 million that went to other causes, he would probably have to broach the Mormon issue — at least a little bit.

What if we request that Willard Romney educate us all a little better on his full family history and his religious faith: Mormonism — and by the same exacting standards and with all the careful insight, civility, and respect as was provided by the base of his own party to our current president.

In 2008, Romney calls Osama bin Ladin “Barack Obama” –

…

More from Romney:

• “Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda – they have fought against religion,” Romney said. [Feb/2012]

• “I think there is in this country a war on religion. I think there is a desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism. … We are now all Catholics. Those of us who are people of faith recognize this is — an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion. It’s one more reason we need to get rid of Obamacare. It’s also one more reason we need to get rid of Obama.” [Romney, Apr/2012]

• Romney’s Message: Obama’s Not a Real American | David Corn – Romney doesn’t call Obama a commie. He doesn’t question his birthplace. He doesn’t say the president is a criminal. He doesn’t suggest he’s Muslim-y. He doesn’t declare that Obama hates America or harbors anti-American views. But Romney has welcomed the backing of those who make these types of claims, and he has even courted these over-the-top Obama foes (as he did with Nugent, after the gun-lovin’, aging rocker had violently threatened Obama and Hillary Clinton). He legitimizes and exploits those who engage in Obama hate-mongering and who debase the political discourse Romney claims to care about. More important, with his own words, Romney has attempted to reinforce the notion that Obama is not truly part of the nation he leads. He has mainstreamed the Obama-ain’t-really-American meme of the right. And that is hardly civil.

• At a 2008 rally in South Carolina Romney posed and held up this sign linking the two likely Democratic nominees, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Romney responded that his critics needed to “lighten up slightly. There are a lot of jokes out there. I’m not responsible for all the signs I see.”