In a major gaff of political incorrectness, John McCain's mother has created a monster problem for the Senator. In answering a question about Mitt Romney's qualifications for President on MSNBC, Roberta McCain blamed the Mormons for the 2002 Olympic's corruption scandal.

"As far as the Salt Lake City thing, he's a Mormon and the Mormons of Salt Lake City caused that scandal. And to clean that up, again, it's not a subject," Roberta McCain said.

The Senator, who has a number of high-profile Mormon supporters, tried to deflect what was an obvious step in the politically incorrect mud.

"The views of my mother's are not necessarily the views of mine," the Senator quipped.

At 95 years of age, Roberta McCain was unapologetic. "Well, that's my view and you asked me."

Later, she realized that she had likely hurt her son's campaign when off camera she apologized to her son. "I didn't mean to say it."

This is the second time that the McCain campaign has run into problems with religiously intolerant statements. The first misstep was from a campaign worker Chad Workman who compared the treatment of Mormon women by men in the church as being similar to that of the "Taliban" in Afghanistan.

At the time, McCain condemend the ridiculous statement, but came under additional scrutiny when he refused to terminate Workman as a county campaign chair. As of this date, Workman still appears promenently as a McCain supporter on the Senator's website.

Previously, the Beehive Standard Weekly had commented on the Workman quote, but there appears to be a calculated plan to allow others to speak and say that which McCain would be slaughtered for saying.

A similar strategy was instituted successfully by Senator Ted Kennedy during Romney's unsuccessful campaign against him. During the last few weeks of compaigning in a very close race, staffers of the Kennedy campaign began making religiously discriminatory remarks in hopes of swaying an ignorant populace about Romney's Mormon faith. Though Kennedy "apologized," it was deemed a low-blow by the media, but did help Kennedy distance himself from Romney at the voting booths.

With Workman's bigoted remarks about Mormon women and McCain's mother's remarks about Mormons being responsible for the Olympics bribary scandal, one can only surmise that McCain has a strategy that involves discrediting Romney because of his religious faith.

Though McCain has been elected into office numerous times by a significant Arizona Mormon population and knows better than to support such statements, on the national scene, McCain staffers and his own family appear to be singing a different song.

Clearly, McCain cannot control what his mother says or what a campaign staffer says, but consider his own comments after his mother's most recent slip.

"What she meant was the Olympics were screwed up by the people in Salt Lake when Romney came in and fixed the problems there." McCain said in a released statement. "But I know my 95-year-old mother is certainly in favor of Mormons."

Now replace the word Mormons with Blacks.  "But I know my 95-year-old mother is certainly in favor of Blacks." If held to an acceptable standard, this comment alone should offend most right-minded persons. What does it mean to be in favor of Mormons?

Clearly, the Olympic scandal started and finished with a corrupt Olympic bidding system and involved a few misguided individuals on the Salt Lake Olympic Committee who stooped to bribery to gain an advantage with the International Committee selecting the 2002 Winter Olympic site. More specifically, these two individuals, a lawyer by the name of Tom Welch and a car salesman named David Johnson. Niether was convicted of criminal wrong doing, but did cast a black shadow over the Olympics.

When Mitt Romney was asked to be the CEO of the Committee, the event was nearly 400 million in the red. Romney is credited with turning the soiled reputation of the 2002 Olympics into one of the most successful games on record.

Though Salt Lake City is composed of nearly fifty percent (50%) Mormons, McCain's mother may be the first to actually blame the "Mormons" for the fiasco that caused the scandal. Indeed, in like terms, "Mormons" opposed having the Olympics in Salt Lake City for fear that it would disturb the sanctity of the City. "Mormons" also took out the trash during the Olympics and were caught speeding on freeways. "Mormons" were also racing down ski slopes in hopes of getting a gold medal and bouncing around on bobsleds. To accuse "Mormons" for the improper and costly acts of two individuals on an Olympic Committee (which was arguably standard fare for getting an Olympic bid at that time), is similar to blaming Americans for the same acts. After all, the two individuals in question were also American.  They were also Republicans . . . and dare we say . . . Men!

Likewise, Workman's comments on his misconceived notion that Mormon women are repressed and beaten daily like Taliban women have been universally condemened as ignorant. Indeed, the comments were simply bizarre to any person knowing any one of the millions of Mormon women as they are almost universally educated and live independent lives, including many feminists who fight for the rights and protections of woman internationally, e.g., Bay Buchannan (Pat Buchannan's sister and political commentator).

At this juncture, John McCain needs to do more to police his rank and file members and cease his back-room discussions about what Mormons are or are not. Being Mormon means nearly nothing as to whether a man will or will not make a good president. It certainly means very little in the way Harry Reid acts as the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate or for that matter the way Gladys Knight sings a song or Glen Beck makes commentary on CNN. It should not be part of the discussion, but Senator McCain's own family and political staffers are making it part of the campaign. That is what most people call religious intolerance.

Let's hope that the Senator is not taking pages from the strategy book of Ted Kennedy, but we have some doubts.