“Words Have Meaning”: Mitt Romney Is Not Fit To Be Commander In Chief
Many of us were shocked, including a lot of Republicans, when Mitt Romney did not reference the troops nor Afghanistan in his speech at the Republican National Convention. Now aids in his camp will say Mitt wanted to focus on the economy; but that doesn’t seem to sit well with most, even in GOP land. After all, the military is normally part of the Republican package.
There are those close to the Romney campaign that said he was advised to visit Afghanistan and talk to commanders while he made his world tour visiting England, Poland, and Israel at the time of the Olympics. After all, Mitt Romney’s not interviewing to be the CEO of a financial company like Bain Capitol, nor is he looking to be elected the governor of a state like Massachusetts; he is vying for the title commander in chief, so how can he ignore the military, Afghanistan, and other issues of national security?
And one would think Mitt would redeem himself in the days since the convention has passed. But he has not. He still has avoided any opportunity to repair the damage from that omission. On Saturday, Romney sat down with Bret Baier of Fox News and said, in response to a question about this omission:
I only regret you’re repeating it day in, day out. [Laughter] … When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list. You talk about the things that you think are important and I describe, in my speech, my commitment to a strong military.
And on Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press he stated:
I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy … I have some differences on policy with the president. I happen to think those are more important than what word I mention in each speech.
Well Romney, it’s going to be repeated, especially by the Democrats, and it will be day in and day out for the remaining nine weeks until this presidential election. National security and Romney’s lack of knowledge on this issue is not a laughing matter. When you addressed the Republican convention, you did go through a laundry list, as did Obama, who managed to tick each box needed to address each issue and each group’s concerns within the party. Doesn’t Romney feel that the military, our troops being in our longest war to date in Afghanistan, and national security are issues that are “important?”
And when did he describe in his speech his “commitment to a strong military?” Guess I missed that one—as did the rest of America. And as far as Romney finding it interesting that people are concerned about the words a politician uses, he better hang on if he wants to sit in the oval office and call it his for four years. It’s not the “word” people are concerned with, it’s the entire military and war we are involved with and matters of national security that Romney omitted in his speech and continues to avoid discussing.
And with the upcoming debates upon us, Romney better do his homework—especially with regards to national security issues—because the president will be ready and the president will beat Mitt’s butt on that issue if Romney isn’t prepared. (Of course I as a Democrat have my fingers crossed on that one.)
Nearly 40,000 people tweeted when the president tore apart Mitt Romney for saying Russia rather than al Qaeda was our enemy; for not being willing to work with China; and for offending our closest ally, the United Kingdom, during the Olympics.
And now with the attacks in Libya and Egypt, and the death of an American ambassador, rather than work toward a solution to this problem, former Governor Romney chooses to politicize the death of an American ambassador. Romney attacked the Obama administration’s response to the incidents in Libya and Egypt. In a statement he released at 10:24 p.m. Tuesday night, he said, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
And that, we know, is a lie. At 10:10 p.m. the Obama administration disavowed the statement by the U.S. embassy in Cairo. At 10:44 p.m. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. And Wednesday Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt responded, “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.”
If Mitt Romney continues to ignore discussing our military, the war in Afghanistan, and national security issues, and attacks the current administration, using an ambassador’s death for his own political gain and to further divide our nation, is he truly fit to be commander in chief? Come November, the voters will answer that question.
By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, September 13, 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
“An Ill-Conceived Strategy”: Romney Needed A Foreign Policy Vision Before Going Abroad
Travel abroad for a presidential candidate during the height of campaign season is designed to demonstrate foreign policy wherewithal and a chance to sharpen the candidate’s “presidential” voice.
This strategy strikes me as a mistake in general for prospective presidential candidates. Yet, this strategy is especially problematic absent a distinct foreign policy vision. Traveling abroad gets the candidate outside of the intense focus of the domestic media, allows the campaign to control the story for a few days, and allows for fundraising opportunities. But, these visits are no substitute for definitive foreign policy convictions and a concrete plan of action on the world stage. Instead of making isolated comments in particular countries without a unifying theme, presidential campaigns should describe to international leaders and the American (and world) public how they would handle a crisis, develop trade ties, punish violations of international norms or laws, the threshold for foreign conflicts, and under what conditions they would engage in diplomacy (or not). Foreign policy is, after all, one of the few direct avenues of presidential power where they are less likely to witness resistance from Congress or the public. It is also the issue where most of the president’s time is spent, whether they want it that way or not.
Even without the misinterpretations, missteps, gaffes committed by former Gov. Mitt Romney and the Romney campaign staff, the trip abroad was ill-conceived. The Romney campaign needs to focus their attention and hone a consistent foreign policy message before road testing it.
In contrast, in 2008 as a candidate, then Sen. Barack Obama visited Germany with an agenda: demonstrate that the United States would be, during an Obama administration, an active and cooperative partner in world affairs. Although isolated, the candidate had a goal that went beyond simply reaffirming relations. In a speech in Tiergarten Park, he promoted a new orientation of American international life, putatively as distinct from the Bush administration.
The old saw in politics is that there are no votes in foreign policy. But, given conflicts on two foreign soils, hundreds of thousands of troops stationed overseas, questions about moral uses of military technology, international threats from hostile neighbors, battles over copyright piracy, and the constant threat of terrorism, presidential candidates should make foreign policy an important component of their electoral strategy. Here, words need to speak louder than images.
By: Brandon Rottinghaus, Washington Whispers Debate Club, U. S. News and World Report, August 1, 2012
“Pants On Fire”: Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It, Mitt Romney Lies Quite A Bit
There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.
Every political campaign exaggerates and dissembles. This practice may not be admirable — it’s surely one reason so many Americans are disenchanted with politics — but it’s something we’ve all come to expect. Candidates claim the right to make any boast or accusation as long as there’s a kernel of veracity in there somewhere.
Even by this lax standard, Romney too often fails. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies. Quite a bit.
“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” Romney claims on his campaign Web site. This is utterly false. The truth is that spending has slowed markedly under Obama.
An analysis published last week by MarketWatch, a financial news Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co., compared the yearly growth of federal spending under presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Citing figures from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, MarketWatch concluded that “there has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”
Quite the contrary: Spending has increased at a yearly rate of only 1.4 percent during Obama’s tenure, even if you include some stimulus spending (in the 2009 fiscal year) that technically should be attributed to President George W. Bush. This is by far the smallest — I repeat, smallest — increase in spending of any recent president. (The Washington Post’s Fact Checker concluded the spending increase figure should have been 3.3 percent.)
In Bush’s first term, by contrast, federal spending increased at an annual rate of 7.3 percent; in his second term, the annual rise averaged 8.1 percent. Reagan comes next, in terms of profligacy, followed by George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and finally Obama, the thriftiest of them all.
The MarketWatch analysis was re-analyzed by the nonpartisan watchdogs at Politifact who found it “Mostly True” — adding the qualifier because some of the restraint in spending under Obama “was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans.” Duly noted, and if Romney wants to claim credit for the GOP, he’s free to do so. But he’s not free to say that “federal spending has accelerated” under Obama, because any way you look at it, that’s a lie.
Another example: Obama “went around the Middle East and apologized for America,” Romney said in March. “You know, instead of apologizing for America he should have stood up and said that as the president of the United States we all take credit for the greatness of this country.” That’s two lies for the price of one. Obama did not, in fact, go around the Middle East, or anywhere else, apologizing for America. And he did, on many occasions, trumpet American greatness and exceptionalism.
Romney offers few specifics, but the conservative Heritage Foundation published a list of “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies” — not one of which is an apology at all.
One alleged instance is a speech Obama gave to the Turkish parliament in 2009, in which he said the United States “is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history . . . [and] still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.” If the folks at Heritage and at the Romney campaign don’t know that this is a simple statement of fact, they really ought to get out more.
Romney does single out the following Obama statement from a 2009 interview: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Romney says this acknowledgment — that others might have as much national pride as we do — means Obama doesn’t really believe in American exceptionalism at all.
But in the same interview, Obama went on to say he was “enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world,” and to tout U.S. economic and military might as well as the nation’s “exceptional” democratic values. So he should be accused of chest-thumping, not groveling.
I could go on and on, from Romney’s laughable charge that Obama is guilty of “appeasement” (ask Osama bin Laden) to claims of his job-creating prowess at Bain Capital. He seems to believe voters are too dumb to discover what the facts really are — or too jaded to care.
On both counts, I disagree.
BY: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 28, 2012
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