“Strap The Horse To The Car Top”: Mitt Needs A Photo-Op During His Pandering Tour
A 3-pointer at a gym full of U.S. troops in a war zone, or a crowd of 250,000 at a speech in Europe — neither is likely, and certainly not necessary. But Mitt Romney needs a helicopter moment for sure.
Four years ago, Barack Obama — a former state senator with mere months in the U.S. Senate who had no foreign-policy experience whatsoever — went overseas to bolster his credentials as potential commander in chief. He traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Germany, France and England. In the midst of two active wars, Obama met with the prime minister of Iraq and the president of Afghanistan and was famously photographed with Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, in a helicopter over Baghdad.
Dan Schnur, a former aide for GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — then strongly preferred by voters over Obama on foreign-policy and defense matters — wrote in The New York Times that because the Iraqi prime minister announced support for the same timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq that Obama outlined, a Bush administration official was heading to multi-nation talks with Iran and a consensus was emerging in favor of a stronger military presence in Afghanistan, “the three most important pillars of Mr. Obama’s international platform had been endorsed from a variety of unexpected sources.” Schnur added, “That’s a pretty good way to start a trip.”
The optics overpowered the picture of McCain back home — puttering around on a golf cart with former President George H.W. Bush — but the substance of Obama’s foreign-policy agenda made headlines as well.
Romney has arrived in England for the Olympic Games before he heads to Israel and Poland on his foreign trip, where he, too, hopes to build confidence and comfort among voters back home in his leadership ability abroad. Like Obama, he lacks experience, but unlike Obama he has yet to lay out a clear vision or even broad plans for how he would handle our most pressing foreign-policy challenges. In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nevada on Tuesday, Romney blasted the president’s foreign-policy record, suggested Obama has betrayed the nation by allowing leaks of classified information for political gain and lambasted cuts to military spending Obama has supported and that all GOP leaders and most of their rank and file in Congress voted for as well. Romney extolled the greatness of America, and said he was “not ashamed of American power,” but wasn’t specific.
After criticizing Obama two years ago for “announcing the day he’s pulling out” of Afghanistan, Romney suddenly announced in his speech Tuesday that he too would advocate withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. His exact words: “As president, my goal in Afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.” Had he been on his way to the site of our nation’s longest-ever war, Romney would have spent the entire trip explaining his flip-flop.
While in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Romney enjoys a decades-old friendship, Romney might offer a new policy prescription for stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons that differs from the Obama administration. He might have ideas about how to depose Syria’s Bashar Assad.
Perhaps in Poland, as he criticizes the Russians, whom he has called “our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” Romney will announce just how he would counter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and how he might convince the Russians — as well as the Chinese — to help the United States, Israel and our allies confront Iran and Syria.
Perhaps not. But the Israeli border of war-torn Syria would be the perfect spot for a helicopter ride with Netanyahu.
By: A. B. Stoddard, Editor, The Hill, July 25, 2012
“Witchy Woman”: Republicans Line Up To Rip Michele Bachmann
They were long afraid to do it, but now conservatives have their knives out for Rep. Michele Bachmann.
Senators in her own party, congressional candidates, a lawmaker in her state’s delegation and leaders of the House Republican Conference are all lambasting the Minnesota Republican for saying the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said merely floating the idea that Huma Abedin — a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — has family ties to the radical Middle East group is “pretty dangerous.”
“I don’t know Huma, but from everything I do know of her, she has a sterling character,” Boehner told reporters Thursday. “And I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous.” Later on CNN, Boehner said he expects to speak to Bachmann soon.
Bachmann’s accusation came in a handful of letters to intelligence and national security agencies raising questions about the Muslim Brotherhood. The letters, also signed by four other Republicans, specifically mentioned Abedin, accusing her late father of having ties to the Brotherhood.
Boehner declined to entertain a reporter’s question about whether he would toss Bachmann off the Intelligence Committee, where she’s privy to highly classified information. Behind the scenes, leadership aides said they were shaken by the comments from someone as prominent as Bachmann.
And Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was described by several sources as incredibly angry when he heard of the incident.
The Republican backlash against Bachmann started with Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) statement on the Senate floor Wednesday, saying she had made “sinister accusations.”
Rep. Jeff Flake, a conservative Arizona lawmaker running for Senate, tweeted “Kudos to @SenJohnMcCain for his statement on Senate floor yesterday defending Clinton aide. Well said.”
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) added: “Rep. Bachmann’s accusations about Sec. Clinton aide Huma Abedin are out-of-line. This kind of rhetoric has no place in our public discourse.”
Even the Minnesota delegation is dispensing with its characteristic niceness. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim who served in the state Legislature with Bachmann in St. Paul, said it’s not personal, but Bachmann is out of line.
“It’s not right to question the loyalty of fellow Americans without any evidence,” said Ellison, whose district is based in Minneapolis. “I object when people do that.”
Bachmann has said her letters “are unfortunately being distorted.”
And while she did not specifically mention Abedin in a follow-up comment, Bachmann is not backing down from her premise of looking into threats from the Muslim Brotherhood: “I will not be silent as this administration appeases our enemies instead of telling the truth about the threats our country faces.”
She elaborated during an interview Thursday with conservative radio host Glenn Beck.
“She is the chief aide … to the Secretary of State,” Bachmann said of Abedin. “And we quoted from the document, and this has been well reported all across Arab media, that her father, her late father who is now deceased was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, her brother was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and her mother was part of what’s called the Muslim Sisterhood.”
Yet more and more Republicans seem to feel more comfortable coming out publicly against Bachmann now — perhaps because she’s no longer engaged in a presidential primary and has returned to the House as a rank-and-file lawmaker.
Ed Rollins, her former presidential campaign manager, said in a post on Fox News’s website that Bachmann has “difficulty with her facts.”
Former New Jersey GOP Gov. Christine Todd Whitman wrote in POLITICO’s Arena, that “the sort of unfounded attack unleashed by Congresswoman Bachmann and her [colleagues] brings back painful memories of a low point in our history.”
Former Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, a recently retired Florida Republican, said “Michele means well but she sometimes doesn’t let proven facts get in the way of a possibility of having national television coverage.”
“Michele would be better served by having competent staff to check out these accusations before she goes out there sometimes appearing to be a ‘bomb thrower,’” Brown-Waite wrote on POLITICO.
Bachmann’s fundraising prowess remains impressive, but requests for donations seem dire. One last month was labeled “URGENT note from Michele,” and urged folks to pony up for her reelection effort against a self-funder who she said “will be able to keep pouring in millions of his own money to defeat me.” Her opponent is Jim Graves, a Minnesota businessman.
“My opponent just released his financial numbers and it will blow you away. His net worth is approximately $111 million. Yes, you read that correctly. One hundred and eleven million dollars,” according to a fundraising email June 26.
She remains a top House fundraiser, bringing in $1.8 million in the second quarter, bringing the total in her campaign account to $1.72 million. At this point in the previous cycle, she had $2.4 million on hand.
The question many Republicans and Democrats alike ask is whether her district — outside St. Paul — truly cares about issues like the allegations she made regarding Abedin.
“They know what she says, they know what she does,” Ellison told POLITICO. “Her district knows her. They know her well. We came into this place together. My district knows me, her district knows her. I guess they either like what she’s saying or they don’t dislike it enough to get rid of her. That’s it.”
By: Jake Sherman, Politico, July 19, 2012
“The Inheritance”: George W. Bush, The Last Guy Mitt Romney Wants In The News
Maybe there’ll come a time somewhere in the future when a Republican presidential candidate jumps at the chance to associate himself with George W. Bush, but we’re not anywhere near that point yet.
In 2008, John McCain kept as much distance from the then-president as possible, appearing with him for a brief, perfunctory endorsement announcement at the White House and relegating him to a pre-taped video appearance at the GOP convention in St. Paul. This time around, Bush was absent when his parents offered a high-profile show of support to Mitt Romney in March, confirming his backing of the presumptive GOP nominee weeks later in a quick, off-camera comment to a reporter while boarding an elevator.
But by the minimal standards of his post-presidency, Bush is really stepping out this week. First, he unveiled a new book that purports to offer a road map to sustained 4 percent economic growth. Then he agreed to an on-camera interview with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson, who wrote speeches for George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The presidential race came up only once during their hour-long chat, with Bush explaining that he doesn’t want to be in the political game anymore, but that “I’m interested in politics. I’m a supporter of Mitt Romney. But, you know, he can do well without me.” Still, that’s more than Bush has previously had to say on the subject, guaranteeing that it will make news.
In fairness, Bush’s low profile since 2009 isn’t entirely attributable to his pariah status. His father made a point of stepping back from politics after leaving the White House in 1993 and not publicly weighing in on his successor’s administration. In part, W is simply affirming this tradition. But in the 1996 presidential election, the elder Bush was granted a prominent prime time role at the GOP’s national convention, and Bob Dole made a point of conferring with him at the height of the general election campaign.
By contrast, Romney and his fellow Republicans have spent the last three years doing their best to pretend W’s presidency never happened, acknowledging him only when they’re forced to and changing the subject as quickly as possible. The politics are understandable: The GOP’s strategy since 2009 has been to channel the public’s intense economic anxiety into a backlash against Obama that will restore control of the legislative and executive branches to the GOP. That much of the country’s suffering can be linked to the epic economic meltdown that came on W’s watch in 2008 is not something they’d prefer anyone to dwell on.
But, polls show, most voters do remember what happened in 2008 and who was president at the time. This offers President Obama a potential opening to win reelection under economic conditions that you might think would doom an incumbent president. As I’ve noted before, there is research that suggests Obama’s approval rating and standing in head-to-head match-ups with Romney is significantly better than it should be based on the state of the economy – evidence, it would seem, that the uniquely catastrophic circumstances under which he came to power are affording him the benefit of the doubt from some voters.
In that sense, Bush’s reemergence this week is only bad news for Romney, and only good news for Obama. So it’s not surprising that the president scheduled a campaign swing through Texas this week, playing the Bush card without actually mentioning his predecessor’s name:
“We spent almost a decade doing what they prescribed,” Mr. Obama said. “And how did it turn out? We didn’t see greater job growth. We didn’t see middle-class security. We saw the opposite. And it all culminated in the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes, precisely because there were no regulations that were adequate to the kinds of recklessness that was being carried out.” He added, “I don’t know how you guys operate in your life. But my general rule is, if I do something and it doesn’t work, I don’t go back to doing it.”
It’s possible the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s Bain background or his own tax return stonewalling will end up costing Romney a critical point or two (and thus the election) in November. But if Obama survives this campaign, it seems far more likely it will be because voters remembered exactly what he inherited in 2009 and exactly whom he inherited it from.
By: Steve Kornacki, Salon, July 18, 2012
“Convoluted Excuse”: Romney Campaign Revives Misleading Claim About Kerry’s Tax Returns
When the it comes to the contentious topic of Mitt Romney’s tax returns, the Romney campaign has invoked precedent, defending their decision to release just two years worth of returns as the standard set by the campaigns of John McCain and John Kerry. The Romney campaign renewed this argument on Sunday.
In fact. Sen. Kerry (D-MA) had released 20 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 2004.
On Sunday, Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie promised that Romney would release a total of two years worth of tax returns, following in the footsteps of McCain and Kerry.
“He is going to release them, Candy, we’ve made that clear,” Gillespie said to host Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And that’s the standard that Senator McCain, Republican nominee in the last election said was the relevant standard. It’s the standard that Senator John Kerry as the Democratic nominee said was the standard.”
In April, Romney himself held up Kerry as an example, telling CNBC that “John Kerry released two years of taxes.”
During the Republican primary, Romney released his 2010 tax returns and an estimate of his 2011 returns. Though Gillespie’s language was somewhat vague on Sunday, he seemed to be referring to fact that Romney would release his 2011 returns, bringing Romney’s total to two years of returns.
While McCain did release two years of returns, Kerry released more. As the Huffington Post and ThinkProgress previously reported, Kerry made it a habit to release his returns to the Massachusetts press during each of his Senate campaigns. The reason Kerry only released a few years worth of returns in 2004 is because his past returns had already been released.
Kerry spokesperson Jodi Seth chastised the Romney campaign for the false allegation.
“Months ago, the Romney team began making this false and convoluted excuse — the media investigated it and promptly reminded them that as a presidential candidate John Kerry had released twenty years of tax returns,” Seth said in a statement to TPM. “Still, months later they’re falling back on this same disproven excuse. In fact, if the Romney standard was the same as the Kerry standard for disclosure, the media would have the chance to review twenty years of Romney tax returns. Ed Gillespie should know better.”
By: Pema Levy, Talking Points Memo, July 15, 2012
“Bobbing And Weaving”: GOP Caught Flat-Footed On Immigration
Republicans are bobbing, ducking and weaving around President Barack Obama’s move to allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to stay in the country, fearing a lose-lose proposition no matter how they weigh in on the policy shift.
While most Republicans criticized Obama for circumventing Congress, they are far more circumspect about the plan’s merits or their preferred method of dealing with the 800,000 young illegals who will be affected by the order.
The GOP fear boils down to this: If it backs the plan, it would infuriate the right flank of the party, which considers the policy nothing short of “amnesty” for lawbreakers. But if Republicans attack it, it could turn off scores of Latino voters who are poised to play a huge role in crucial battleground states this November.
So the Republican response? Say very little.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the GOP would follow the direction of Mitt Romney, who in turn has called on Congress to deal with the matter without laying out specifics himself. Arizona Sen. John McCain said Republicans are ready to embrace a proposal under development by Sen. Marco Rubio, but the Florida freshman now plans to shelve the proposal until after the election.
And there’s been virtual silence on the Senate floor from Republicans who have shied away from talking about the matter publicly.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn — the ranking member on a key immigration subcommittee and head of the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee — was asked if the GOP needed its own policy proposal on the matter this election year.
“We were working on that, and the president basically undercut it by trying to do this unilaterally, something he said a year ago he couldn’t do,” Cornyn told POLITICO. “This isn’t going to get implemented in the next 140 days before the election.
“The most important thing we can do is to get America back to work.”
Republicans are in virtual agreement on that. The election, they believe, will turn on Obama’s stewardship of the economy, something they think will resonate with Latinos also frustrated with the president’s failure to deliver on comprehensive immigration reform.
But there’s far less unanimity among Republicans on how to deal with the emotional issue of children of illegals brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday after a party lunch, McConnell refused several times to weigh in on the substance of the change, instead deferring to the party’s presumptive presidential nominee to address it at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials convention Thursday in Orlando, Fla.
“I think most of my members are interested in learning what Gov. Romney has to say about this issue, and we’re going to withhold judgment — most of us — until that time,” McConnell said.
Romney — who along with Obama will speak at the three-day convention — repeatedly declined to answer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday whether he as president would make the same policy change as Obama did. Instead, Romney criticized the process by which Obama enacted the move.
McConnell declined to answer what should happen to young children and adults who are in the country illegally and would qualify under the new policy. He also deflected questions about whether the new policy constitutes “amnesty,” as immigration hard-liners charge.
“If it leads to citizenship as a reward for some kind of illegal entry, that could be argued,” McConnell said on amnesty. “But I think we’re going to wait and see what Gov. Romney has to say and then our members are going to be discussing his views on this and I think many of them will have similar views, others may not.”
But like other top GOP officials, the Kentucky Republican criticized Obama over his process.
“What I can say for sure is, the president said a year ago he didn’t believe he had the authority to do what he announces he was going to do last week. And I don’t think that’s an irrelevant thing to discuss,” McConnell said. “I mean, did he have the authority to do what he did?”
Twenty Republican senators, including McConnell, released a letter sent to Obama Tuesday demanding a detailed response from the White House on its authority to issue such a broad move. But the missive stopped short of picking apart the policy itself.
In the House, Speaker John Boehner said the immigration move puts “everyone in a difficult position” and accused the president of trying to shift the debate away from his stewardship of the economy.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune , No. 3 in the Senate GOP leadership, called Obama’s move “politically motivated” but acknowledged that “he’ll probably stand to benefit politically from doing that.”
Asked about the GOP approach, Thune said he preferred a broader solution, something he believed Romney was in the “process of formulating.” Like other Republicans, Thune said the president undermined the Rubio effort.
Rubio announced Monday he would likely punt the matter until after the election, since the president’s move sapped the legislative momentum out of his push — a decision that appears to have caught many Republicans flat-footed.
McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee, said Republicans should talk about the matter “as an issue of compassion and concern.”
Asked if the GOP needed a legislative proposal to show voters, McCain said: “Well, Marco Rubio had one that obviously was nearing completion.”
Informed that Rubio appeared likely to drop the effort now, McCain said: “Well, I don’t know what his decision is — but I know he’s close to completing one.”
There were many similarities between Obama’s and Rubio’s plans.
Rubio’s plan would have legalized undocumented children brought to the United States at an early age provided they have no criminal record and have completed high school. It would grant them “non-immigrant” visas and allow them to stay in the country and access the existing immigration system, through which they could eventually become green card holders or naturalized citizens.
Similarly, Obama’s executive action said that those who entered the United States before the age of 16, are younger than 30 and pose no security threat, served in the military and completed minimum levels of education can get a two-year deferral from deportation and apply for work permits.
The Democrats’ DREAM Act — which Obama supports and Romney promised to veto during the primary campaign — would provide a direct pathway to citizenship by providing green cards to children seeking higher education or military service of at least two years.
At least one Republican praised Obama’s decision: Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), whose support for the DREAM Act became a political liability in his losing primary bid.
“The executive action is controversial,” Lugar said, “but nevertheless, on balance, it seems to me that it was a constructive move.”
By: Seung Min Kim and Manu Raju, Politico, June 19, 2012
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