Mitt Romney isn’t fit for the Oval Office
Character is a combination of traits that etch the outlines of a life, governing moral choices and infusing personal and professional conduct. It’s an elusive thing — easily cloaked or submerged by the theatrics of a presidential campaign — but unexpected moments can sometimes reveal the fibers from which it is woven.
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Last week, Mitt Romney had just such a moment. His rash, crass and blatantly dishonest response to violent protests in Libya and Egypt exposed a feckless and contemptible character that places political advantage above patriotism and values winning at any cost over courage, honor and truth.
As mobs attacked U.S. embassies in the Middle East, Romney rushed to use the moment as a cudgel against his rival, President Obama. He might have waited to find out whether any diplomats had been injured or Marines attacked. He did not. He might have waited until a day of mourning in commemoration of national tragedy — 9/11 — was over. He did not.
Instead, as violence escalated and lives hung in the balance, Romney jarringly condemned the president, claiming that “the administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” Later, he stood by that lie, contending that Obama coddles and apologizes to the nation’s enemies. His shamelessness overshadowed his belated attempts to acknowledge the deaths of four courageous Americans — including Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya — who gave their lives in service to their country.
In a closely-fought political campaign, candidates often exaggerate their rivals’ shortcomings, blame them for circumstances beyond their control and accuse them of recklessness or timidity (or both). That’s politics.
Indeed, by the end of the week, some leading Republicans were joining the criticism of the president’s foreign policy, hoping to help the GOP nominee extricate himself from the hole he’d dug. John McCain, for example, claimed the Middle East protests — perhaps spurred by a despicable U.S.-made Web video slandering Islam’s founding prophet — could be attributed to “American weakness and the president’s inability to lead.”
But McCain and other prominent Republicans had the decency to wait until the nation had digested the news of the losses among the diplomatic corps. Romney had no such decency. By contrast, after President Carter’s botched raid to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran, Ronald Reagan, his opponent, said, “This is the time for us as a nation and a people to stand united.”
In truth, Romney’s shamelessness and shallowness have been on display for years, evident in his falsehoods, his hypocrisy and his spinelessness. He has no apparent political principles that he will not jettison if circumstances seem to dictate a change in ideology.
And you don’t have to go back far to find Romney’s ever-present hypocrisy. He wants to enjoy the traditional GOP advantage on foreign policy, but Obama has seized and occupied that territory — killing more terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, in four years than George W. Bush did in eight.
So Romney gripes and complains, even if that means taking two or three different positions on the same issue. Last year, he attacked the president for waiting to commit U.S. forces to the NATO effort to overthrow dictator Moammar Gadhafi. A few weeks later, he criticized Obama for allegedly going too far in committing forces in Libya. In between, he ran from reporters who were trying to pin him down on his position.
Most revealing of Romney’s character (or lack thereof), however, is his contentious relationship with truth. His criticism of Obama’s Middle East foreign policy is of a piece with his oft-repeated claim that the president has traveled the world on an “apology tour,” kowtowing before foreign leaders and paying penance for his nation’s sins. Never happened, as several independent fact-checkers have said.
Nor did the president react to the siege on U.S. embassies by “sympathizing” with violent mobs. Inside the Cairo embassy, diplomatic staffers did try to calm the growing anger by releasing a statement that condemned “continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” When Obama found out about the statement, he disavowed it. But he also noted that embassy personnel were in difficult circumstances, so “my tendency is to cut those folks a little bit of slack.”
Romney didn’t have the class to do that, either. His character is one that would not suit the Oval Office.
14 Responses
Nice hatchet job on Romney. You seemed to have covered all the DNC talking points, including the one about not criticising the terrorists and murderers who did the killings. They get a pass, I guess.
Do you really believe it is necessary for me to state my disapproval of terrorism? Do you think terrorists read my column?
Cynthia,
One used to assume that as Americans we would all have certain values in common. But with citizens such as yourself that hate the overreaching, unjust, “Colonial Power” of the United States of America and celebrate the downtrodden prolotariate no matter who they are, yes; you need to state your position. For instance: Do you agree with our support of Isreal and reject the terrorist ways of groups like Hamas and Hezbullah? That’s an easy one. Mike
Cynthia,
How sad to see someone of your supposed level of education, such an unbelievable hack. I feel sorry for the young people who have no choice but to sit in your classes while you attempt to pollute them with your biased rhetoric. Like every American you have a right to your opinion, a right given to you by the personal sacrifice of so many brave men and women who fought for our liberty and our Constitution. While you are free to have an opinion, maybe it would be best if you kept it to yourself. Your degree commands a certain amount of respect in many circles, but your ridiculous article makes one wonder just how you could have gone through so much educating, and still be so ignorant. I guess my vote this November to save our country from Barack Obama and persons like yourself will merely cancel out your vote. With that thought in mind, I will have to work just that little bit harder to convince yet another 2008 Obama voter to correct their mistake.
While I doubt this email will change your mind and turn you from the U.S. hating person you are, I can at least smile, knowing ignorance is bliss, and you Madam are as blissful as they come. As they say down there in Georgia, “Can’t fix stupid!”
P.S. Do you really think your chin on your fist makes you look like a deep thinker? (Rodin’s Le Penseur) Unfortunately you opened your mouth and removed all doubt!
I agree 100% with your statements regarding Romney’s character. I watched him in full campaign mode with no consideration for those fine Americans who represented service with dignity. He called A National Press conference!
I started to read your article because I was curious about it and you are one of the reasons that I don’t read articles anymore. Everything is so one sided. My family voted for Obama last time but not this time. He is not a good President that you and all the other left leaning journalists portray him to be. What happened to the days when journalists actually reported the truth instead of the BS you guys shovel. Most people I know consider the media to be nothing but a joke anymore. We are disgusted with you……..
About your article on Romney not being fit to serve in the oval office and his remarks about the embassy attacks. WTF was Obama waiting for? His leadership is worse than Zero. He needs replacing and your comments about the man that is going to lead us back to the American way of life was uncalled for. Would you prfefer Socialism and Communism? Then when I saw your photo, it all came to light, Dark Light. this time, vote for America and not Color…
Could not agree with you more. I enjoy your responses on MSNBC as well.
If you get a minute, check out my video about Mitt Romney called ‘Etch a sketch to the Resuce.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgDHsDKjIxQ&feature=g-upl
Thank you and keep up the excellent work.
Will do, Annette. And thanks
So there’s an explosion of the usual anti-American mayhem from the usual quarters to “celebrate” 9/11 and the US embassy in Cairo, which can normally be assumed to speak for the administration, attacks some nebbish of an American citizen for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech here at home. So utterly wrong was this statement that their bosses back in Washington immediately felt compelled to pull the rug out from under it. What do the media do? You guessed it. The “major news outlets,” — seeing that this was a disaster for the Obama campaign that couldn’t be spun to his benefit — decided the only tactic available to them was simply to change the subject to a trumped-up side issue. So they’re busy decreeing, with much gesticulation, that Romney has committed some kind of “gaffe” by telling the truth about the government’s disgraceful initial response. It was only a matter of time before one of Obama’s most blinkered fan girls joined the phony dudgeon parade.
I guess you didn’t actually understand that definition of character when you penned that despicable opinion piece. Not that I’m surprised, given who you look to as an example of integrity and honor. But congratulations on creating a piece so outrageous in the lengths and breadths it goes to demean and distort reality that it ends up skirting the border between science fiction and humor.
You have the nerve to accuse Romney of waffling on issues, while Prince Barack sits on the fence, checking wind direction and, I assume, counting the votes and benefits of, finally, coming down on the side of gay marriage. Of course, he would love us all to believe that his position on the issue had been ‘evolving’ (his word for explaining away politically opportunistic decisions), lo these past three years, but alas, only the feeble-minded among us have bought that nonsense.
Your characterization of Romney and his remarks as ‘despicable’ or ‘contemptible’ is as shallow and transparent as your reason for doing so, and will never pass the straight-face test since it was quite obvious from Obama’s lack of immediate outrage with the perpetrator’s of those attacks or the goverments of those countries which allowed them to be carried out that, absent Romney’s criticism, he would never have issued any meaningful statement. If you doubt Obama’s foreign policy stance has been based on ‘coddling’ the Arab world, just ask Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu what he thinks about the Prez. Perhaps you can get an opportunity to do just that when the leader of our greatest, and only, ally in the Middle East arrives in America next month for a speech at the UN on Iran’s threat to the region and world. Unfortunately, your stand-up guy, Obama, is too busy to meet with him on such a trivial matter….or perhaps he just doesn’t want to have to make any public committments, especially if his arab buddies would be offended..!
And if I have to read the revisionist tale one more time about Obama’s success in taking out Bin Laden, I think I’ll have to puke. That effort was ten years in the making, and many people, including the former Republican administration had a hand in that success. Obama just happened to in the Office when it finally paid off, so please cut the crapola. Truth, which you claim to esteem, be told, if Obama had been in charge from the beginning, we never would have generated the intel to get the job done, given his position on waterboarding. And that’s the guy who is going to look out for America’s interests…?
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This article made me so angry! How can you lie like that? Just goes to show that the devil is hard at work and right now in America he’s winning. I will pray for your immortal soul as I pray for the soul of our beloved country.
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