Poor Jim Lehrer of PBS lost control after about 5 minutes as Mitt Romney ran over him like a amroller.
I've seen Democrats on Twitter and the blogs going nuts over the fact that Romney was more forceful than Obama. The gang on MSNBC were overwhelmingly negative to the point of apoplexy, and I can see their point - Obama didn't bring up the war on women or immigration or any number of topics that affect millions of people. So the second-
guessing and armchair-quarterbacking will go on for days. Why didn't Obama zing Romney over the 47% video? There were many wasted opportunities.
But there's another way to look at this. We also saw was a more calm and gentlemanly President Obama watching Mitt Romney growl about the debate limits while bullying the moderator and lying through his teeth about all his previous positions.
The fact checkers are going to have a field day with this. And I can't imagine what the Tea Party base thought of Romney's sudden interest in the elderly and schoolteachers, not to mention Obamacare.
None of it really makes sense, and if Obama seemed stunned or distracted, he was probably wondering why he was having to debate such an insidious politician who will literally say anything to win. "Lying for the Lord" some call it. I just call it craven.
The most nonsensical point of the debate came early on when Romney said he would do away with PBS, the network they were on, and fire both Big Bird and Jim Lehrer. It just seemed to come out of nowhere and you could hear people in the audience gasping. I think it was supposed to be a Romney "zinger" but came out harshly and almost cruel, even more so when you realize that his grandchildren were in the audience. I wonder what they thought about Grandpa firing Big Bird?
However, Obama did hold Romney's feet to the fire several times, for instance when Romney strongly denied that he has a $5 trillion tax cut in his plan, Obama gave him a smackdown:
“I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut — I don’t have a tax cut of the scale you’re talking about,” Romney said. “My view is that we ought to proide tax relief to the middle class. … High income people are doing just fine in this economy, they’ll do fine whether you’re president or I am.”
But Obama countered that Romney has refused to specify which deductions and tax breaks he would eliminate to counterbalance the 20 percent rate cut, which Romney claims would not reduce overall revenues.
“Well, for 18 months he’s been running on this tax plan, and now five weeks before the election, he says his big bold idea is ‘never mind,’” Obama said. “And the fact is that if you are lowering the rates the way you describe, governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only effect high-income individuals to avoid raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It’s math — arithmetic.”
Romney also insisted that he never means to lower taxes for the wealthy. which seems out of character and disingenuous. And he made an unfortunate analogy that seemed to brand his own children as liars while labeling Obama a "boy" - a word that seems all too familiar as a racial dog whistle. At any rate, even if he meant to make Obama sound like a lying juvenile, that's still not good. So I don't think Romney won anything in this debate, and after people can get a transcript and see the effect on the polls they may change their verdict. I think Romney might get a slight bump in states where he is already winning, so who cares?
Romney went on to say that he would also not reduce the tax rates paid by the rich. “I know that you and your running mate keep saying that, and I know that’s a popular thing to say with some people, but it’s just not the case.”
“Look, I’ve got five boys,” Romney added. “I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true but just keep repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it. But that is not the case.”
While sitting in the doctor's office this morning holding a fistful of insurance forms (ironically), I happened to see this smackdown of Tea Party fanatic Amy Kremer by Soledad O'Brien. Kremer had no explanation for why she thinks Obama doesn't love his country, beyond the fact that she doesn't like him, and that he is a black man in the White House.
My husband thought heard Kremer say something about the Tea Party only talking about fiscal responsibility, not social issues. Yeah, well tell that to Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, Michele Bachmann and every other doofus backed by Tea Party money.
It is a social issue to talk about cutting off Medicaid and Medicare and letting people drift away without a safety net. Or when someone thinks they have the right to say who "loves their country" and who doesn't. Are they going to segregate us all based on that? To them, no Democrat loves their country, so it's a bogus argument.
But props to Soledad O'Brian for calling it a dog whistle! Indeed!
O'BRIEN: Welcome, everybody.
Our team this morning: Dana Bash is with us. She's CNN senior congressional correspondent.
Mayor Michael Nutter joins. He's the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia.
Amy Kremer is with us. She's the Chair of the Tea Party Express. It's nice to see you, Amy. Thanks for being with us.
Ryan Lizza is a Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker."
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
. . . [*snip*] . . .
O'BRIEN: Amy, let me ask you a question. Because someone sent to me this tweet -- I swear to God I can't see anything anymore -- that you sent out at the end of August at 10:55 p.m. "Huge difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is that Mitt loves America. We need a president that loves this country." I think that's from -- I missed this one, but someone forwarded it to me.
Do you think that President Obama doesn't love this country? What does that mean?
KREMER: I think that he is more about a global -- being a global -- oh, what's the word? Being more one world, global, with you know other countries and it's not about the shining city on the hill, the greatness that has always been America that our founding fathers were about. I do believe that. I -- I mean, I absolutely believe it. I'm not going to run from that.
Look, I mean, President Obama, and I know I'm going to take a lot of heat for this, but he's never run anything. Mitt Romney, you asked me what is the case for Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney time and time again has taken companies that are failing and turned them around to make them successful.
I mean, he turned the Salt Lake City Olympics around. He ran the state of Massachusetts. Because what I'm saying is we are -- we are failing. We are about to go off this fiscal cliff. And we need somebody that can turn it around.
President Obama has not turned it around. I'm sorry he hasn't --
NUTTER: But the Governor has also -- but the Governor has also taken over companies and put people out of work. At the expense of losing jobs and making money for himself and for his investors. If you're going to tell one side of the story, tell the other side.
KREMER: I mean and you know and President Obama's energy policy, if it's -- and in President Obama's energy policy if it's implemented, it's going to cost -- I mean let me see. I have the numbers right here because I'm not very good with numbers. But it's going to cost us 7.3 million jobs by 2020. And $1 trillion in compliance costs between 2020 and 2030.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: I just never understand what any of that has to do with loving the nation. I mean, I honestly, I always feel like that's a code word for something else.
(CROSSTALK)
KREMER: I just I mean, I don't feel like he is --
NUTTER: What is the basis for questioning the President's love for this country? How can you say that?
KREMER: I just I don't believe that he loves America the way that we do.
NUTTER: Based on what? We who?
KREMER: He is more about one world -- I mean more about --
NUTTER: What does that mean?
KREMER: I just explained it to you.
NUTTER: Well, clearly, I'm not understanding.
KREMER: Well, I mean, don't know how else to explain it.
LIZZA: His foreign policy -- his foreign policy that you look at it and say, oh that's Obama wants America to be gone and he wants one world?
KREMER: I mean we are not leading. We're waiting on others to tell us what to do. That's never been the American way.
LIZZA: What specifically? What specifically?
KREMER: I believe it was Syria. Was it Syria that or one of the conflicts where we -- the French told us we could go and do what we needed to do. Were -- that's -- that's not the American way. We need to lead.
NUTTER: Well, maybe this is America now.
KREMER: But this is the thing the foreign policy -- it's not about foreign policy we're never all going to agree on foreign policy. But why the Tea Party Movement has been so successful is because of the fiscal responsibility.
LIZZA: I think what you're saying is leading from behind, right?
KREMER: Yes.
LIZZA: So I was the journalist that actually reported that quote. So the leading from behind is something that was told to me. And actually, what it refers to is the strategy in the UN, the U.S. led a coalition in the UN to get military authorization to topple Gadhafi.
So the quote actually is the opposite of what you're saying. It actually refers to the strategy that Obama used in the UN to get all of the nations to support the U.S.'s use of force resolution because after the Bush years, it was really hard for the U.S. to go to the UN and get support because Bush was really, really unpopular.
O'BRIEN: But people didn't care about foreign policy. I guess my question is, when I hear somebody say that someone doesn't love the country, and you know I'm very susceptible to the dog whistle thing.
KREMER: The what?
O'BRIEN: That dog whistle that there is a message in that. When someone says that somebody doesn't love the country and you're talking about the President I just find that to be a very odd comment.
KREMER: I don't believe -- I mean look, we're sitting -- I mean we're sitting here, is our goal really in this administration to be the leader that we always have been, to be that shining city on the hill?
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: What does that have to do with love for your country? Mitt loves his country and President Obama doesn't?
KREMER: If you love this country and you want to restore our heritage and that sort of thing, you go out there and you lead. You don't wait on others to tell you what to do. And you take those bold steps. I mean, I don't think that that's what the objective of this administration is.
O'BRIEN: So I'm going to stop you there. Mr. Mayor, stop. Because I have had so many people screaming in my ear that we have so gone over. I thank you for this conversation. We've got to take a break. We're back on the other side.
As an English major and bookish person, it's fascinating to me that iconic books are beginning to define the candidates.
For the Republicans it's clearly anything written by Ayn Rand from Atlas Shrugged to The Fountainhead. John Galt represents the selfish "every person for themselves" attitude that causes the Republican Congress to block or stonewall every social program that might help anyone, and their vision of society is of one divided between successful wealthy people and the slacker rabble who are beneath them.
For the Democrats, the new book reference, thanks to Clint Eastwood, is Ralph Ellison's amazing book, Invisible Man.
Thursday night at the Republican Convention, Clint Eastwood played out a bizarre ad lib between himself as a typical Republican and an empty chair representing President Obama. While it's easy to laugh and blame the whole thing on the senility of an aging actor past his prime, what he did was quite symbolic.
Obviously the Republicans want Obama's chair to be "empty" - they want him gone from the White House. Back in April, the Romneys were asked in an interview what they would like to say to President Obama, they said Obama should just get out of the White House. Get out of the Oval Office - here we come!
"Well, start packing. That's what I'd like to say. Obviously we have a very different view. The president, I'm sure wants another four years, but the first few didn't go so well," Romney said.
"His policies have not helped the American people. They have not helped get jobs, they have not helped raise incomes and they’ve added trillions of dollars of debt,” Romney added.
The sentiment was echoed by Romney's wife, Ann, who has played an increasingly prominent role in the campaign in recent weeks.
"I believe it's Mitt's time. I believe the country needs the kind of leadership he's going to offer… So I think it's our turn now," Ann Romney said.
Notice what he also does in that quote - Mitt blabs a bunch of other things about Obama implying he hasn't done any good for the country and has created all the national debt by himself, which is a lie. In fact, Romney lies nearly continuously in his speeches about what Obama has or hasn't done, and other Republicans are worse. John Sununu and Donald Trump call him "foreign," and the birthers cheer. Sarah Palin says he wants to kill Grandma with a death panel, and everyone waves a flag. It's just rank propoganda and vicious rhetoric that bears no likeness to the truth.
Etymology:
"Straw man" is one of the best-named fallacies, because it is memorable and vividly illustrates the nature of the fallacy. Imagine a fight in which one of the combatants sets up a man of straw, attacks it, then proclaims victory. All the while, the real opponent stands by untouched.
So we have real Obama, who was born in the United States and has been a really good President for four years, then we have this demon straw man who is just a diabolical fiend, conspiring with his own parents before he was born to become President and drive Tea Party members insane 50 years later.
What Clint Eastwood did with his comedy sketch was to imagine Obama sitting in that chair on stage, in effect creating an "imaginary straw man." How do we know that his vision of Obama was not the real thing? Well, he put words into Obama's mouth that he wouldn't say - our President just isn't going to tell Mitt or anyone else to "F*** himself," which is what Clint implied as a joke. It was just unfunny.
It is not insignificant that Clint Eastwood pretended that the imaginary Barack Obama he was talking to responded to him with vulgarity. On multiple occasions, he pretended that Obama cursed him with the f-word as a response to his political criticisms. The real President Obama would not do this, of course, because he is a gentleman who speaks in a dignified manner. Republicans like Clint Eastwood cannot stand that. The Obama of their imagination is ghetto trash, the kind of person who would cuss and make his points using vulgarity rather than well-reasoned arguments. They literally imagine him as their image of the stereotypical young urban thug, because the reality of a young black liberal gentleman is too difficult for them to comprehend or accept.
Exactly. The invisible straw man in that chair is not the real Obama.
Hungry Coyote on Daily Kos has a great diary about the disrespect shown to Obama by Eastwood, and I won't try to repeat all of it because I want to actually discuss the literature involved with some quotes from Ellison.
But first let's just look at a quote from MSNBC transcript she has kindly provided, a snippet of discussion between James Lipton of the Actor's Studio and Chris Hayes.
Chris Hayes: . . . he was sitting in a chair. So he was being literally talked; literally, physically talked down to.
James Liption: Down to.
Chris Hayes: Down to, and like a school boy; like an errant school boy, and my executive producer made this point about you know, Clint Eastwood and the RNC should go back and read The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison because actually, there's a whole masterpiece of American literature ... around the experience of invisibility in front of the white power structure for a black man in America. And obviously that was; I don't want to say like that that was obviously the intentional subtext. I think it was not thought out. I just think it was they wanted to have a gag. But the way it reads was deeply, deeply profoundly, profoundly disrespectful in a way that really, I found kind of upsetting.
James Liption: One of the things about this campaign that has fascinated me is the number of jokes that have gone over like lead balloons.
Alex Wagner: yes.
James Liption: I've never heard quite so many jokes that weren't really funny. They're structured like a joke, sounds like a joke; you think you're listening to a joke, except it's not funny.
I think Ralph Ellison would concur - it's unfunny to imagine a black man as errant schoolboy - or "boy" of any kind, especially in the 21st century. The trouble is, the Republicans seem to long for the plantation past with their talk of secession as the answer to all problems, and their denial about America becoming more brown and less white all the time. I think that's why they are desperate enough to let their racism show.
Every time we hear a string of dog whistles in a speech, what the speaker is really just showing you his ideal straw man - a black person who never heard of civil rights, who never went to college, who never wrote a book or owned a house or entered the middle class. In his convention acceptance speech Mitt Romney, like Santorum before him, mocked Obama for being a lawyer, when all three of them went to the same exact Law School at Harvard. That is like making yourself into a straw man, then attacking yourself with just as much ferocity lest someone mistake you for your enemy. It must be painful to go on stabbing yourself that way, but Mitt, Ryan and the others want to highlight differences, not similarities.
African Americans back in the day endured a type of apartheid, restricted to certain neighborhoods, certain jobs, certain schools, certain expectations. Ellison was a man of that time, and as in Kathryn Stockett's recent novel The Help set in Mississippi during the sixties civil rights movement, people were expected to "know their place," to sit in the corner, to look down, and to never speak up. Ironically, that learned behavior of obsequiousness certainly helped the struggle as they followed Gandhi's rules of non-violence and Thoreau's idea of civil disobedience. Brave people were willing to endure anything to change the system, from the indignity of mustard poured over their heads at a lunch counter or being chased by police dogs on a public street or thrown in jail.
And Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel was just one of a number of great American books that influenced social change in the 60s, but given that the Republicans don't see President Obama clearly and Eastwood literally made him the "Invisible Man" on stage in Tampa, here are some quotes from the book that can remind us of the plight of President Obama. No matter what he does, 30% of American won't accept him as a "real American," and many of them will never admit they were wrong. But they are the ones who can't see themselves clearly.
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie extoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.”
“I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied”
"America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's 'winner take nothing' that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many -- This in not prophecy, but description."
Here's Mitt Romney today doing his best dog whistle. Now that Romney has gone crazy-ass Birther, will the Republicans still rant about how "discourteous" Obama is to them?
Speaking about his Michigan roots, he said, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."
The joke was received with hearty applause by the audience. . . .
. . . The Obama campaign quickly responded, with spokesman Ben LaBolt saying that Romney was embracing the most extreme elements in the conservative movement.
"Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them," he said. "It's one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney's decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America."
Romney adviser Kevin Madden played down the joke, saying Romney was "only referencing that Michigan, where he is campaigning today, is the state where he himself was born and raised."
Rush Limbaugh was so happy he took a break from blaming Obama for Hurricane Isaac:
LIMBAUGH: Mitt Romney and Ryan, drawing a huge crowd in Michigan. And get this.
ROMNEY [audio clip]: I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.
I debated whether to write this down, but after reading Mitt Romney's Warsaw speech several times, a possible racist dog whistle jumped out at me. I do not know if this was intentional or unintentional, but I bring it up since everyone from Cokie Roberts to Chris Matthews has mentioned that Romney is trying to get the white Polish American vote in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
But my theory now is that the goal is bigger than that -- What if he is trying to seal the deal not just with European ethnic groups, but with all the white supremicist voters in the United States? After all, he has to have them to win because he's alienated so many other groups in the country, such as Hispanics.
I'm talking specifically about all those people who hate Barack Obama just because he is African American, the ones outraged that he was ever elected President in the first place, the birthers who view him as "foreign" or un-American - as Romney spokesman John Sununu was blabbing about a few weeks ago.
Sometimes for the racist factions, "European" is as much a dog whistle as "Anglo-Saxon," which Romney threw out in a statement just last week before his London debacle.
And NOTE: I realize there are lots of other places called Pulaski in many states. I'm discussing just one in particular. Stay with me here, and follow Romney's own words . . .
Let's look at what Romney said, then study some history:
I, and my fellow Americans, are inspired by the path of freedom tread by the people of Poland. Long before modern times, of course, the Polish and American people were hardly strangers. The name "Pulaski" is honored to this day in America, and so is the memory of other Poles who joined in our fight for independence.
The "fight for independence" is a reference to the Revolutionary War, correct? That could just be a shout out to the "Patriot" movement connected to the Tea Party, but there's more . . .
Who is he talking about specifically? Who is the person called "Pulaski" who helped us in our fight for "independence" from the British?
Here's the answer: Casimir Pulaski, native of Warsaw, who fought with George Washington.
Casimir Pulaski, son of Count Joseph Pulaski, was born in Warsaw, Poland, on March 6, 1745. At the age of fifteen, he joined his father and other members of the Polish nobility in opposing the Russian and Prussian interference in Polish affairs. Outlawed by Russia for his actions on behalf of Polish liberty, he traveled to Paris where he met Benjamin Franklin, who induced him to support the colonies against England in the American Revolution. Pulaski, impressed with the ideals of a new nation struggling to be free, volunteered his services. Franklin wrote to George Washington describing the young Pole as "an officer renowned throughout Europe for the courage and bravery he displayed in defense of his country's freedom."
In 1777, Pulaski arrived in Philadelphia where he met General Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Later, at Brandywine, he came to the aid of Washington's forces and distinguished himself as a brilliant military tactician. For his efforts, Congress appointed him Brigadier-General in charge of Four Horse Brigades. Then again, at the Battle of Germantown, Pulaski's knowledge of warfare assisted General Washington and his men in securing victory for American forces.
All well and good - he was a Revolutionary War hero. Nice.
But beyond the European/Polish/Revolutionary War connection, what is is Pulaski, Tennessee, MOST famous for? Do you know? Well, here's the dog whistle part: Pulaski is where the Ku Klux Klan was founded.
The Ku Klux Klan was originally organized in the winter of 1865-66 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a social club by six Confederate veterans. In the beginning, the Klan was a secret fraternity club rather than a terrorist organization. (Ku Klux was derived from the Greek "kuklos," meaning circle, and the English word clan.) The costume adopted by its members (disguises were quite common) was a mask and white robe and high conical pointed hat.
According to the founders of the Klan, it had no malicious intent in the beginning. The Klan grew quickly and became a terrorist organization. It attracted former Civil War generals such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the famed cavalry commander whose soldiers murdered captured black troops at Fort Pillow.
The Klan spread beyond Tennessee to every state in the South and included mayors, judges, and sheriffs as well as common criminals. The Klan systematically murdered black politicians and political leaders. It beat, whipped, and murdered thousands, and intimidated tens of thousands of others from voting. Blacks often tried to fight back, but they were outnumbered and out gunned. While the main targets of Klan wrath were the political and social leaders of the black community, blacks could be murdered for almost any reason. Men, women, children, aged and crippled, were victims.
The Klan occasionally still marches in Pulaski, although most of the locals aren't happy about it.
Klan Rally in Pulaski, TN, 2009
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Pulaski the "white supremicist epicenter of the nation" in this article about a Klan march there back in 2010:
Although it’s a small town of about 7,800, Pulaski, Tenn. may well be the white supremacist epicenter of the nation — at least if the number of rallies held there by bigoted groups is any indication.
The mayor and other residents aren’t pleased. “There’s never been a local person involved in these marches or rallies,” Mayor Daniel Speer told Hatewatch this week. But they’re resigned to being a favorite locale for the haters on the American radical right. Speer’s town is more than one-quarter black, but it has for decades been a favorite place for white supremacist groups to rally because of one unfortunate historical fact: This was where the Ku Klux Klan was born.
“It’s a great place to come and learn about the heritage of European Americans,” the festival’s website says. The site includes links to racist individuals and groups including David Duke, who founded Robb’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1975; the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that has described black people as a “retrograde species of humanity” and opposes “race mixing”; and The Barnes Review, the leading American journal devoted to denying the Holocaust.
The European Heritage Festival follows by three months a “White Unity Day March and Rally” in Pulaski conducted by the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations. A year earlier, in July 2009, the Fraternal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan staged a birthday march in Pulaski for their hero, Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. There have been many other Klan rallies in Pulaski over the decades.
. . . “It’s frustrating,” the mayor says. “[We’re associated with] the Klan. It’s a stigma. Unfortunately, I just don’t see it going away.”
"A great place to . . . learn about the heritage of European Americans." Yep - just like Casimir Pulaski, the guy referred to in Mitt Romney's Warsaw speech.
NOTE:I do NOT in any way, shape, or form mean to insult anyone named "Pulaski" or any Polish Americans, nor anyone living in present-day Pulaski, Tennessee. My goal is just to point out that Mitt Romney may have made a racist reference in his Warsaw speech, whether intentional or unintentional. If it is unintentional, then he really needs a new speechwriter because it is unbelievable that they would let the candidate unintentionally invoke the history of Pulaski, TN, in the United States.
If it is intentional, then Romney is just as cynical and cut-throat as everyone thinks, since he also quoted Condileeza Rice and Pope John Paul II, who make strange bedfellows with the Klan. My feeling is that his political team will do or say anything to win, and that's why this speech is a jumbled word salad aimed not at Europe, but at the Tea Party and even the Aryan Nations in the U.S. He is name-dropping this and that to get the couple hundred thousand votes he needs to win, ironically along with the help from the new Jim Crow-style laws in the swing states. Does this sound strange? Well, stranger things have happened - remember the election of 2000?
I'm only talking here about the way that reference might be taken by certain factions, and given the fact that Romney needs the Southern White or Midwestern White vote to win this election, this is a fair topic. I don't seek to insult anyone or any place either, but history is history, and considering how many borderline racist comments Mitt Romney has made in the past few months, let alone the past few days with the Israel/Palestine comparison, I'm just throwing this out there . . .
I have been enjoying the heck out of Romney's British Invasion so far, even before he landed in the country. One (or possibly two) of his surrogates went nuts yesterday and told the British tabloid Telegraph UK a few bizarre things about what Romney wants from British relations, including several racist dog whistles about how Romney is "more Anglo Saxon" than Barack Obama, who "hates NATO." You can't make this stuff up.
We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.
. . . Obama is a Left-winger," said another. "He doesn’t value the Nato alliance as much, he’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory'.”
. . . He is naturally more Atlanticist.
Despite his promises that politics stops at the water's edge, Gov. Romney's wheels hadn't even touched down in London before his advisers were reportedly playing politics with international diplomacy. . . . The comments reported this morning are a disturbing start to a trip designed to demonstrate Gov. Romney’s readiness to represent the United States on the world’s stage. Not surprisingly, this is just another feeble attempt by the Romney campaign to score political points at the expense of this critical partnership. This assertion is beneath a presidential campaign.
Romney spokesman Ryan Williams quoted in the LA Times: The Vice President of the United States used an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper to prop up their flailing campaign. We have very serious problems confronting our nation and American families are hurting, yet the Obama campaign continues to try to divert voters' attention with specious shiny objects. We have more faith in American voters, and know they will see this latest desperate ploy for what it is.
Obama Spokesperson Jen Psaki: One of his advisers violated exactly what they said they wouldn't do which is criticize the president beyond the borders of the U.S.
This is a case where there is a continuous fumbling of the foreign policy football here, and it does raise a question as to whether Mitt Romney and his team are ready to have serious conversation about a foreign policy
Why would Mitt Romney to make a fool of himself at the NAACP convention in Houston? Why would he tell an audience of mainly Democratic Obama Supporters that he wants to repeal "Obamacare," causing them to boo him off the stage?
But wait ~ isn't he trying to gain African American support in the November election? Isn't he trying to appeal to black independent voters?
Actually, no, he isn't trying to do that at all.
What he's trying to do is show the Tea Party Republicans that he's a "real man" who will stand up to Democrats, and especially people of color.
So he got up in front of the NAACP and blew his "dog whistle," or a message that most of us will take one way, but the "in crowd" of Republicans will hear another way, just as a dog can hear a dog whistle that is inaudible to most humans. Most Democrats or Independent voters will think "poor Romney, he screwed up again," while the Tea Party will cheer it as a victory.
Unlike Ted Nugent or Rush Limbaugh, a man running for the highest office in the land has to use a subtler form of dog whistle. He has to pretend that he wants to be everyone's president, which is what he said today, but at the same time he gave his party red meat with the contradiction that no matter what the members of the NAACP want from a President, they won't get it from him. And that's how we know it was a dog whistle, not some slip-up by an incompetent campaign.
Oh, and also too . . . he admitted that he expected to get booed. He knew he was going to get a reaction that would be a sound-byte on the news.
Mitt Romney said after being booed at the NAACP today that he "expected" the strong objection in response to his pledge to repeal President Obama's health care law.
. . .
Avis Jones-DeWeever, the executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, said Romney had accomplished a "calculated political ploy" by signaling to conservatives that he's willing to tell backers of the health law that he wants to cut it.
"That was like a victory lap on Fox News," she said. "That was exactly what he went there intending to do."
Bashir: Was Mitt Romney really addressing the audience that he was in front of or was he speaking to some other people in that speech? Because -- the speech itself was a stump speech that I have heard when he's been in New Hampshire, when he has been in Wisconsin. It didn't seem any different. Who was he really speaking to?
Jonathan Capehart: He was speaking to both audiences and in his stump speech is void of any specifics which has, you know, Democrats and Republicans alike scratching their heads and begging for more. But -- in all speeches there are multiple audiences. On the one hand he's saying to African Americans you are just like everyone else I talk to. You are a part of the united states . Here's my overall message.
Bashir: Thank you for reminding us of that. Excellent.
Capehart: But the other audience is still his core constituency. His base. His being booed by saying he will repeal Obamacare, I think that will inure to his benefit. It shows his constituency that, one, he is not afraid to say "Obamacare" to the audience that's the most loyal constituency to -- to president Obama. And that he then took in the boos and went off script and ad-libbed this study that you called bogus shows he . . . he's not afraid of -- not afraid of a fight. So he's doing -- he is doing multiple things. I think tactically speaking, politically speaking, not so bad.
Bashir:Clarence , what do you think that Mitt Romney actually welcomed the booing in some ways? Maybe it kind of was helpful to him because of course he's going off to Montana and then he's going to see Dick Cheney in Wyoming, he can go there and wave this one and say "look, boys, I got booed at the NAACP."
Clarence Page:Martin, how can you have such a cynical Machiavellian notion as to think that Mitt Romney might find some value in triangulating a situation like this? (laughter) Seriously. I was wondering the same thing. I don't know the -- I don't mean Mitt Romney wants to be portrayed as a man black people don't like. When you look at the speech, indeed it was the same talking points he normally gives when campaigning to his base. But also, the same words, I mean, when you talk about Obamacare, to say Obamacare to the NAACP, it's like praising cheeseburgers to a convention of vegans. (laughter) This organization has been very much -- in favor of Obamacare for a variety of Republican Code. He never says "Romneycare." He's very happy to say "Obamacare." It was very much loaded like he was talking to a group of Tea Party folks. I don't think he was really surprised by the booing. and certainly he scores points either way with middle of the road folks important just the fact he showed up. But he's making the outreach. George W. Bush did it as a candidate but then went several years without showing up at the NAACP as President.
