Mormons and middle initials

I’m not making this up:

I sometimes encounter mockery from apostate Mormons of the propensity of Latter-day Saint leaders to use middle initials.  It’s a characteristically Mormon sign of pomposity, or something like that.

And perhaps it is.

Just look at how many Mormons have done it:

Ulysses S. Grant

Robert E. Lee

John C. Calhoun

Roger B. Taney

Salmon P. Chase

Chester A. Arthur

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harlan F. Stone

Benjamin N. Cardozo

Henry A. Wallace

Alben W. Barkley

Harry S. Truman

William O. Douglas

Robert A. Taft

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert S. McNamara

Lyndon B. Johnson

Hubert H. Humphrey

William J. Brennan, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Richard M. Nixon

Spiro T. Agnew

Warren E. Burger

Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Gerald R. Ford

Nelson A. Rockefeller

Walter F. Mondale

Edward M. Kennedy

George H. W. Bush

George W. Bush

John G. Roberts

Pompous and self-important Mormons, all of them.

And the list could be extended indefinitely.

This has to be one of the very silliest complaints against Mormonism that I’ve ever encountered.