“Not Ready For Prime Time”: Mitt Romney Has Turned This Election Into A Referendum On Himself
Mitt Romney’s strategy was to make this election a referendum on President Barack Obama, one in which voters unhappy with the struggling economy would vote out the incumbent. Obama sought to make this a “choice” election, presenting himself as the better pick.
Now, Romney, through his own actions, has done the unfathomable: He is bringing the campaign back to a referendum. But it is increasingly becoming a referendum on Romney.
There were so many missteps in Romney’s response to the tragic murder of a respected, career U.S. ambassador and three other Americans that it’s hard to decide which was most troubling. The former governor issued a hasty statement—and on a day of remembrance for the 9/11 victims, despite a gentleperson’s agreement not to campaign negatively on that day—accusing the Obama administration of making an “apology” to those who attacked U.S. embassies and killed four people in the service of the U.S. government. This was based on a simple and very defensible statement issued by the U.S. embassy in Cairo hours before the outposts in Egypt and Libya were breached: It simply said that the United States condemns the “misguided” efforts by a few to insult a religion—any religion.
To Romney, this was an “apology” to assassins. In fact, it was basic diplomacy. Hordes were beginning to gather outside the Cairo embassy, reportedly because they were upset by a very offensive film that depicts the prophet Muhammed as a killer, enslaver, child abuser, and pervert. It’s useless to have an intellectual discussion about whether it’s reasonable for Muslims abroad to associate the film with the United States or American policy. The point is that many do, and basic diplomacy (not to mention aversion of a violent crisis) dictates a response to assure people that no, that is not the view of the U.S. government. That is not an abrogation of American values as the GOP nominee suggested—it was a reaffirmation of the basic and proud American value of respecting all religions. One would think that Romney, who has suffered insults and misconceptions about his own Mormon religion, would understand that.
Hours after the deadly attack in Libya, Romney defied basic diplomatic procedure and issued a statement attacking the commander in chief in the middle of a still-unfolding international crisis. That was not only poor manners, but raises questions about how much thought Romney would give before reacting to an international crisis should he end up occupying the Oval Office. When something that tragic and yet potentially headed toward something even worse occurs, the sensible thing is to gather all the available intelligence and act in a manner that protects and affirms U.S. interests without escalating things—particularly when there are other American diplomats still in potential danger. True, Romney is not privy to classified intelligence. That’s all the more reason to hold one’s rhetorical fire.
Then Romney doubled-down, ignoring an overwhelmingly negative early reaction to his first statement. He repeatedly used the word “apology”—whether he’s trying to sell more copies of his book No Apology or whether he’s desperately trying to keep alive the canard that Obama has gone around the world “apologizing for America,” is not clear. But it was a political statement, not a reasoned response of someone who hopes to be the nation’s chief diplomat. One wonders who is advising Romney on foreign policy. One of them is former Ambassador Richard Williamson, who went on MSNBC to defend the governor. When Williamson was reminded of criticism levied by respected former diplomat Nicholas Burns, he interjected to assault Burns’s own record. Burns is a career foreign service officer and White House foreign policy adviser, and has served in the administration of both former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Williamson shot back to host Andrea Mitchell that Burns had worked for Carter. That’s true—that’s what foreign service officers do; like soldiers, they work for whomever is in office. But Williamson’s effort to diminish the star diplomat by connecting him to an unpopular president is pathetic and an insult to every member of the diplomatic corps who serve honorably—sometimes risking their lives—for their country. Williamson’s experience has been as a political appointee, and some of his career has been indeed driven by politics: He ran for Senate as a GOP candidate from Illinois and served as the state’s Republican chairman. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a different experience than being a career foreign service officer, as Burns—not to mention slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens—was.
And the episode exposes another problem for challengers for federal office: You can try to keep your campaign focused on issues you think work for you. But when you’re in office—be it in the White House or Congress—you can’t pick your issues anymore. Romney may try persistently to stay on message, answering questions on other topics by saying, “What I think Americans really care about is the economy,” but you can’t do that when you’re commander in chief. Even if voters indeed are most worried about the economy, stuff happens, and a president has to respond. A CEO can plan, and Romney seems like a good planner. But being chief executive of the U.S. government means dealing with things that were not part of the plan. A venture capital executive can choose his or her investments. The U.S. government by definition, because of its role in the world, is automatically invested in a wide array of issues and regions. The president, whomever it is, must be able to respond responsibly to all of them.
Romney’s comments do not come under the category of “gaffe,” since they were not made off-the-cuff or off-mike. He—or someone—clearly thought this through, and very deliberately decided that it made sense for Romney to use an ongoing international tragedy to portray the president as ineffective or inconsistent on foreign policy. Instead, Romney revealed himself as a man who is more interested in a blustering, “no apology” approach to dealing with other people—not a good sign for domestic negotiations, either, given that whoever occupies the White House next year is likely to face even more closely-divided chambers in Congress. And his reaction put on display a startling lack of understanding of basic diplomacy—something we already saw, with far fewer potential consequences, during his trip to Britain, Israel, and Poland. It was a big risk—and apparently, a calculated one—Romney took. It may have succeeded only in turning the attention away from Obama’s performance in office and put it squarely on Romney’s readiness for office.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, September 13, 2012
“Completely Irresponsible”: Mitt Romney’s Disgraceful Politicizing Of The Libya Tragedy
Mitt Romney has not exactly distinguished himself in the foreign policy arena: his disastrous trip abroad and misplaced comments, his failure to even mention the troops and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his convention speech, and now his crass attempt to politicize the deaths and demonstrations overseas.
Instead of ready, aim, fire, with Romney it is fire, ready, aim. When he should wait and get the facts, he fires off a political attack that is designed to boost his candidacy. Sadly for him and for America’s foreign policy his statements had devastating consequences.
He called the Obama administration “disgraceful” and accused them of “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.” He put out an early release of that statement in an attempt to get news coverage, after initially embargoing it until midnight.
He threw an incendiary bomb in the middle of a horrible and life -hreatening international situation. This is not the mark of a leader but rather the mark of a desperate candidate who puts his political survival above those who serve this country. In short, it is his actions and words that are “disgraceful.”
At a time when the rhetoric should be ramped down, Romney ramps it up. At a time when the activities of a mob should be condemned by those of all political stripes and the activity of a deranged individual ridiculing Mohammed should be universally rejected, Romney plays politics.
Chuck Todd called it on Morning Joe today “a bad mistake they made last night….an irresponsible thing to do.”
I couldn’t agree more.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, September 12, 2012
The Danger of “Scoring Points”: By Trying To Make Obama Look Bad, Romney Makes Himself Look Like An Asshole
Mitt Romney is running for president. And I guess it can be hard, when you’re running for president and your focus every day is convincing the American voter that you’re a great guy and your opponent is awful, not to approach every new development in the world by seeing it as yet another opportunity to tell everyone that your opponent is awful. But when the only question you ask yourself is, “How can I use this to make my opponent look bad?” you run the risk of making yourself look like a jerk. Sometimes during a campaign, a candidate will be asked, “Is there anything your opponent has done that you agree with?” or “Is there anything good you can say about him?” Usually they say, “He has a lovely family,” as though the thought that he might have done a single thing right is just impossible to contemplate. To say otherwise would be passing up an opportunity to “score points.”
And this, I think, is the root of why Romney did what he did yesterday and came out looking like such an asshole. American civil servants had died in the line of duty, and the only thing he could think to do was use it as the occasion for a weak, unpersuasive attack on Barack Obama, delivered at an appallingly inappropriate moment. All he wanted was to “score points.”
Romney seems to be laboring under the mistaken belief that his challenge on foreign policy is to make voters think poorly of Barack Obama. In fact, his challenge on foreign policy is to make voters consider him a credible president. That’s really all. As long as they think Romney would be reasonable on foreign policy, which is a secondary consideration for almost all of them anyway, it would be enough. Romney is just never going to be able to argue persuasively that Obama has been a foreign policy disaster, and he doesn’t have to. Four years ago the average voter thought the sitting president was such a disaster, committing blunder after blunder and undermining American interests around the world. But today only the most partisan Republican believes that, and Romney no longer needs to appeal to partisan Republicans.
At times of crisis and tragedy, Americans want our leaders to channel the emotions we’re feeling and be the people we want ourselves to be. That’s why, for instance, the best moment of George W. Bush’s presidency was when he stood on top of the rubble at the World Trade Center and said, “I hear you, the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” For all the spectacular screw-ups that came afterward, at that moment Bush perfectly expressed Americans’ anger and their desire to be strong and resilient (and take revenge). That’s why his approval ratings shot up to over 90 percent.
Mitt Romney failed to realize that when Americans are killed overseas, it’s not like every other thing that happens during a campaign. According to The New York Times, Romney’s reaction to the violence was actually the product of a lengthy discussion with his aides, during which I guess they agreed that what really mattered in this situation was not so much that American officials had been killed, but that a statement released by the Cairo embassy could, with the proper disingenuous description of the chronology involved, be described as some kind of weakness and “apologizing” and also attributed directly to Barack Obama. It sounds utterly insane, but that’s the conclusion they came to.
What they obviously didn’t do was take a moment to put themselves in the shoes of a typical American. Was the typical American going to learn of these events and say, “What really has me steamed isn’t the murders in Benghazi, it’s that statement the Cairo embassy put out.” Of course not. Instead, the typical American voter ended up watching Romney and saying, “For cripe’s sake, Americans died, all because of some insane amateurish movie, and this is what you have to say? To come out and whine about how the Obama administration handled a frigging tweet sent out by an embassy staffer? Are you kidding me? What a jackass.”
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, September 13, 2012
“Far Too Mysterious”: So Mitt Romney, What Do You Really Believe?
Too much about the Republican candidate for the presidency is far too mysterious.
When Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts, he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance, backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it. Now, as he prepares to fly to Tampa to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president on August 30th, he opposes all those things. A year ago he favored keeping income taxes at their current levels; now he wants to slash them for everybody, with the rate falling from 35 percent to 28 percent for the richest Americans.
All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr. Romney could win an Olympic medal in it (see “Mitt Romney’s chances: The changing man”). And that is a pity, because this newspaper finds much to like in the history of this uncharismatic but dogged man, from his obvious business acumen to the way he worked across the political aisle as governor to get health reform passed and the state budget deficit down. We share many of his views about the excessive growth of regulation and of the state in general in America, and the effect that this has on investment, productivity and growth. After four years of soaring oratory and intermittent reforms, why not bring in a more businesslike figure who might start fixing the problems with America’s finances?
Details, details
But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection. Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind. America won’t vote for that man; nor would this newspaper. The convention offers Mr. Romney his best chance to say what he really believes.
There are some areas where Mr. Romney has shuffled to the right unnecessarily. In America’s culture wars he has followed the Republican trend of adopting ever more socially conservative positions. He says he will appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court and back the existing federal Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA). This goes down well with southern evangelicals, less so with independent voters: witness the furor over one (rapidly disowned) Republican’s ludicrous remarks about abortion and “legitimate rape” (see “The Todd Akin affair: Grenades and stilettos”). But the powers of the federal government are limited in this area; DOMA has not stopped a few states introducing gay marriage and many more recognizing gay civil partnerships.
The damage done to a Romney presidency by his courting of the isolationist right in the primaries could prove more substantial. He has threatened to label China as a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency. Even if it is unclear what would follow from that, risking a trade war with one of America’s largest trading partners when the recovery is so sickly seems especially mindless. Some of his anti-immigration policies won’t help, either. And his attempts to lure American Jews with near-racist talk about Arabs and belligerence against Iran could ill serve the interests of his country (and, for that matter, Israel’s).
Once again, it may be argued that this will not matter: previous presidents pandered to interest groups and embraced realpolitik in office. Besides, this election will be fought on the economy. This is where Manager Romney should be at his strongest. But he has yet to convince; sometimes, again, being needlessly extremist, more often evasive and vague.
In theory, Mr. Romney has a detailed 59-point economic plan. In practice, it ignores virtually all the difficult or interesting questions (indeed, “The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs” is like “Fifty Shades of Grey” without the sex). Mr. Romney began by saying that he wanted to bring down the deficit; now he stresses lower tax rates. Both are admirable aims, but they could well be contradictory: So which is his primary objective? His running-mate, Paul Ryan, thinks the Republicans can lower tax rates without losing tax revenues, by closing loopholes. Again, a simpler tax system is a good idea, but no politician has yet dared to tackle the main exemptions. Unless Mr. Romney specifies which boondoggles to axe, this looks meaningless and risky.
On the spending side, Mr. Romney is promising both to slim Leviathan and to boost defense spending dramatically. So what is he going to cut? How is he going to trim the huge earned benefits programs? Which bits of Mr. Ryan’s scheme does he agree with? It is a little odd that the number two has a plan and his boss doesn’t. And it is all very well promising to repeal Barack Obama’s health-care plan and the equally gargantuan Dodd-Frank act on financial regulation, but what exactly will Mr. Romney replace them with—unless, of course, he thinks Wall Street was well-regulated before Lehman went bust?
Playing dumb is not an option
Mr. Romney may calculate that it is best to keep quiet: The faltering economy will drive voters towards him. It is more likely, however, that his evasiveness will erode his main competitive advantage. A businessman without a credible plan to fix a problem stops being a credible businessman. So does a businessman who tells you one thing at breakfast and the opposite at supper. Indeed, all this underlines the main doubt: Nobody knows who this strange man really is. It is half a decade since he ran something. Why won’t he talk about his business career openly? Why has he been so reluctant to disclose his tax returns? How can a leader change tack so often? Where does he really want to take the world’s most powerful country?
It is not too late for Mr. Romney to show America’s voters that he is a man who can lead his party rather than be led by it. But he has a lot of questions to answer in Tampa.
By: The Economist, Business Insider Contributor, August 25, 2012
“I Voted To Send People To War”: Paul Ryan’s Big Foreign Policy Credential Is On The Wrong Side Of History
Defending himself against the perception that he has no significant foreign policy experience, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has drawn fresh attention to one of the most controversial acts of the past decade: the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq before UN weapons inspections were completed. Ryan now points to his vote for war as a token of his readiness to serve in the White House, but he is on the wrong side of both history and public opinion.
The Wisconsin Congressman may come to regret his flippant response to Carl Cameron last Saturday, when the Fox News reporter asked how he would respond to critics who question his weak national security resume. “I’ve been in a Congress for a number of years,” he said. “That’s more experience than Barack Obama had when he came into office.” Perhaps he should have stopped there, but instead blundered on: “I voted to send people to war.”
Does Ryan believe that voting for war constitutes foreign policy experience? If so, it is a kind of experience that reflects very poorly on him. Even he must realize that the underlying premise of the war, Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, quickly proved to be nothing more than a Bush administration hoax, along with the secondary claim that Saddam’s regime had some connection with the 9/11 attacks. After casting his party-line vote for a ruinous war because he accepted a faked argument, Ryan never spoke up against its continuation. He ratified every troop escalation and every supplemental appropriation.
Unlike the American people, who turned decisively against the war years ago, and have condemned it by large majorities as a waste of blood and treasure, he apparently still believes it was a swell idea. Concerned as he supposedly is about excessive federal spending, Ryan believes that the Iraq misadventure was worth three trillion dollars it has cost so far (and presumably the lost and destroyed lives of Americans and Iraqis, all the dead, wounded, orphaned, and traumatized, as well).
Except among the neoconservative advisers cocooned in the Romney campaign, such enthusiasm for the war is a very peculiar and distinctly minority perspective. Over the past few years, polls have shown between one-third and one-fifth of voters agreeing that the war was “worth the cost.” Roughly two-thirds to three-fourths of the electorate rejects that assessment and supports President Obama’s withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. That lopsided margin is fair warning for any politician who stakes his reputation on the Iraq war.
What Ryan cites as his chief qualification to serve as commander-in-chief is a series of votes that represent the most fateful, expensive, inexcusable error in recent American history. For him to cite that vote to draw a contrast with President Obama, who got the Iraq issue right, is startling. It reveals something that Americans need to know before he gets any closer to executive power.
By: Joe Conason, The National Memo, August 20, 2012
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