Speaking of Paul H. Dunn...

[_bcspace]

bcspace, how exactly did Buffalo fudge the facts?

Who was Lynn Packer?

How did that change this issue in any substantial way?

Any issue presented yellow journalistically in this way is substantially changed.

[_Buffalo]

bcspace, how exactly did Buffalo fudge the facts?

Who was Lynn Packer?

How did that change this issue in any substantial way?

Any issue presented yellow journalistically in this way is substantially changed.

Notice how he avoids the question :)

Oh, and his favorite non sequitur, "yellow journalism." This is a bcspeak for "information not spun to make the church look good."

[_Yoda]

bcspace, how exactly did Buffalo fudge the facts?

Who was Lynn Packer?

How did that change this issue in any substantial way?

Any issue presented yellow journalistically in this way is substantially changed.

BC...Did you not read the link? It states pretty clearly who Lynn Packer was. He was a Journalism Instructor at BYU, and also the nephew of President Packer. According to the article, he discovered that many of Dunn's tales were not true while investigating a white-collar investment scandal, which Dunn apparently played some sort of part in. Since Packer also appeared to have had a career in television journalism, it seems that he had put together all of his findings about Dunn in a big Sunstone presentation that he was planning on giving. Sunstone canceled Packer's slot, but apparently, The Arizona Republic, another newspaper, got a hold of the information and published it.

Honestly, I think this story paints Packer in a much more malicious light than Dunn. He was out to ruin the reputation of a then 65 year old man whose only real crime was charismatically telling some exaggerated faith-promoting stories for the benefit of the Church. (The poor man died of heart failure 10 years later.) And for what purpose? To get a little further ahead in the new business?

[_harmony]

When one thinks it is okay to lie to the public, and especially when one says publicly that those who do so should be given a pass because they are doing it for a good cause, that individual is adding confirmation, in no uncertain terms, to the claim that "Lying for the Lord" is alive and well in Mormonism.

Difference to note: Dunn never said he was giving revelation, never said he was visited by an angel with a flaming sword, never claimed to speak for God. He made up stories that illustrated whatever gospel principle he was talking about at the time. And "alive and well" doesn't describe his current status, and thus can't be used to hammer the church.

Joseph, on the other hand... well, his is a different catagory altogether.

[_Yoda]

Difference to note: Dunn never said he was giving revelation, never said he was visited by an angel with a flaming sword, never claimed to speak for God. He made up stories that illustrated whatever gospel principle he was talking about at the time. And "alive and well" doesn't describe his current status, and thus can't be used to hammer the church.

Exactly. The other thing I pointed out on the thread in Celestial is that Dunn was never an Apostle.

[_Buffalo]

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/083-28-34.pdf

[_Buffalo]

ELDER PAUL H. DUNN’S exaggerated stories mention that he:

¯ Was the sole survivor among 11 infantrymen in a 100-yard
race against death, during which one burst of machine-gun fire
ripped his right boot off, another tore off his ammunition and
canteen belt and yet another split his helmet in half--all
without wounding him.

¯ Kept a Japanese prisoner from being butchered by GIs bent on
revenge for the torture-slayings of American soldiers.

¯ Wrestled a dynamite pack off a child kamikaze infiltrator,
saving himself and the child.

¯ Miraculously survived being run over by an enemy tank, while
others were crushed.

¯ Was one of only six in his 1,000-man combat group who
survived, and was the only one of the six who wasn’t wounded.
He has since acknowledged that only 30 soldiers in his unit
died during the entire war, but he said the exaggeration of
numbers is unimportant.

"The thing I’m trying to say is that there was a power higher
than my own.., a wonderful spiritual force out there."

It really looks like a major motivation for Elder Dunn was self-aggrandizement. I mean, come on.

[Guest]

When one thinks it is okay to lie to the public, and especially when one says publicly that those who do so should be given a pass because they are doing it for a good cause, that individual is adding confirmation, in no uncertain terms, to the claim that "Lying for the Lord" is alive and well in Mormonism.

Difference to note: Dunn never said he was giving revelation, never said he was visited by an angel with a flaming sword, never claimed to speak for God. He made up stories that illustrated whatever gospel principle he was talking about at the time. And "alive and well" doesn't describe his current status, and thus can't be used to hammer the church.

Joseph, on the other hand... well, his is a different category altogether.

Harmony,

At the real risk of having both female mods unhappy with me, I would point out that the fact that Dunn's lies were not as egregious as those of Joseph Smith in no way excuses them, or makes them "okay".

If you will re-read you will see that the "alive and well" in my post referred to "Lying for the Lord", not to Paul Dunn. At the present time, by my count, there are three threads concerning this venerated practice among Mormon leaders and Joseph Smith's whoppers are the subject of none of them.

[_Buffalo]

PACKER SAYS Mormon
CHURCH LIED TO
DEFEND DUNN
By Vern Anderson
The Associated Press
12 August 1991

SALT LAKE CITY--Mormon
Church officials lied when they
said they had no way of "finally
verifying" whether a former
church official’s accounts of his
war and baseball experiences
were accurate, a reporter claimed
Saturday.

Lynn Packer, whose research
into Paul H. Dunn’s stories
showed several had been fabricated,
said members of the faith’s
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
were well aware the stories were
false when Dunn was abruptly
retired from the church’s hierarchy
in 1989 for reasons of
"health and age."

Packer told an audience at the
Sunstone Symposium that
church leaders had conducted at
least two internal inquiries into
the veracity of Dunn’s stories and
whether he had falsified copies of
tax documents.

The second investigation was
headed by a church attorney,
Harry Pugsley, with whom Packer,
a Mormon, said he cooperated.
"His report, confirming the
allegations, was delivered to the
Quorum of the Twelve just a couple
of weeks before Paul Dunn
was given emeritus status," Packer
said.

Packer’s research was
purchased by The Arizona Republic
and formed the basis of the
newspaper’s story in February
about D~nn, whose tales of
World War II and playing in the
St. Louis Cardinals organization
helped make him the most popular
speaker and author in The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday
Saints.

Dunn, 67, conceded to The
Republic some of his stories were
untrue but he defended them as
necessary to better illustrate
moral and theological points.
When The Republic story was
published, the church’s Department
of Public Communications
issued a statement saying, "We
have had no way of fully or finally
verifying the accuracy or
inaccuracy of current allegations
or accounts that are now under
challenge."

That statement, Packer said,
is a "falsehood." He said he was
told by Quorum members James
E. Faust and David B. Haight that
if the truth about Dunn’s fabrications
ever became public, it
would shake the faith of some
members.

Asked about Packer’s
statements late Saturday, church
spokesman Don LeFevre said:
"We stand by the statement that
was issued at the time."
Packer criticized The Republic
for "soft-pedaling" the story by
not touching the issue of allegedly
falsified documents, the
Utah news media for failing to
follow it up and the church for
sacrificing truth to protect one of
its own.

The result, he said, was that
his reputation suffered because
his motives--not Dunn’s--were
unfairly questioned.
"You can scratch your head a
long time trying to understand
the Paul Dunn myth making and
coverup in terms of the truth,"
Packer said. "But if you think of
it in terms of connections, you
can easily understand."

Someone like Dunn, a member
of the church’s "good-oldboy
network, sort of the LDS
leadership social-business club,
gets every benefit of the doubt."
During his presentation,
Packer held up an enlarged copy
ofaW-2 form for 1947 given him
by Dunn, through his attorney, as
proof Dunn played a season of
professional baseball with the
Ontario, California, Orioles
minor league club.

"Observation alone reveals
problems with this document,"
Packer said. Numbers are obviously
hand-altered. One typewriter
was used for wages; another
for the amount withheld.
"Research backed up what
was obvious: the W-2 form is no
more credible than counterfeiting
a thousand dollar bill with a
one dollar bill and a crayon,"
Packer said.

Asked about the document,
Dunn admitted to The Republic
that the $5,024.75 figure on the
form did not reflect wages from
the Orioles, but a "grouping" of
wages from "semi-professional
baseball."

[_Buffalo]

And in another case of the church shooting the messenger and protecting the perp (this time the messenger was also a victim):

http://www.clobberblog.com/?p=3479

Let me get this straight
In the mid 1980s, a man named Kevin Garn got naked in a hot tub with a young woman by the name of Cheryl Maher.
Garn claims he was 28 30 at the time and acknowledges that Maher was only 15. Garn had formerly served as her Sunday School teacher when she was younger. (And just so we’re all clear, 28 30 is too old to blame something on youthful indiscretion.)
Garn becomes the [Republican] representative of the 16th District for the Utah House of Representatives in 1991.
In 2002, when Garn is running for re-election, Maher attempts to talk to the Church-owned Deseret News about what happened. DN verifies the story, yet decides to sit on it. Garn loses his bid for re-election in spite of the newspaper’s efforts to protect him.
Garn subsequently arranged a pay-off of $150,000 in hush money. The agreement was facilitated with the help of Maher’s LDS bishop.
Garn was re-elected to the House of Representatives in 2007 and became House Majority Leader in 2009.
If the Deseret News and the “helpful” bishop didn’t alert the Church to these happenings (which is extremely doubtful), Cheryl Maher did by writing a letter to the Church in 2008.
Maher was excommunicated at some point between 2002 and 2010, while Garn remains a member of the Church. She says she was excommunicated for an extra-marital affair. I’m dying to hear how Maher’s extra-marital affair (presumably with another consenting adult) warranted excommunication while Garn’s extra-marital affair with a 15 year-old didn’t.
Yet no one is blogging about this (outside of links to news stories in the sideblogs).

What am I missing here?

And just for the record, I don’t want any comments comparing this to 19th century polygamous practices.