Palestinians are "Those People" to Romney

We would think that Mitt Romney could hide his class consciousness for just a little while on a foreign policy trip in the most volatile area of the world.

Nahhhhh . . . he just can't do it. His sense of "us" versus "them" is just too ingrained. There's always the "in group" and the "out group," very cut and dried to him, as when he attacked another student with long hair who "didn't look right" in his old school. I'm sure this comes from his wealthy upbringing, and perhaps his sense of moral righteousness as a Mormon. He seems to believe, and it is shared with many Evangelicals, that the Jewish state is so important to the fulfilling of some Biblical prophecy that they should get whatever they want. And Palestine is in the way of that prophecy, so they don't matter.  Therefore, Romney feels he can diss the Palestinians in favor of his rich Jewish donors and God will smile down on him and make him President of the United States. *gag*

Here is the worst part of his Jerusalem speech, in which is compares the West Bank to Mexico.

As you come here and you see the GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality." Mr. Romney told a group of donors gathered at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He added: "And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other: Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States

But wait, is Mexico an occupied country? They have problems, yes, but mostly of their own making. No one is bombing Mexico or keeping citizens from looking for jobs in Mexico City.

And then after bringing up this volatile issue in his Israeli speech, today Romney told CNN that "the issue of settlements is something which should be discussed in private by the American president and our allies."

Okay, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?  Romney once again mentions that "quiet room" he referenced once before when, not surprisingly, he was discussing inequality between two groups - rich and poor Americans. I think these are code words - "private" and "quiet" - that show he is embarrassed by inequality and injustice, but the rich just don't speak of such things, else they might have to feel guilty about their vast wealth, and that is an unacceptable idea.  He doesn't have much empathy for those "beneath" his status, but maybe he has learned over the years that he lacks that human feeling that would connect him as a human. This is why some refer to him as "Romneybot" - something is missing in the emotional intelligence department.

January 2012, from the Matt Lauer Today Show Interview:

I think it's about envy," Romney replied. "I think it's about class warfare. I think when you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent vs. 1 percent, and those people who've been most successful will be in the 1 percent, you've opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.

. . . Lauer asked, "Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?"

"You know I think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms," Romney said. "But the president has made this part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It's a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach."

If Romney likes the "quiet room" approach so much, why is out there at the Wailing Wall making speeches about Israel without once mentioning the plight of Palestine? Why is it "class warfare" when Obama points out inequality, but off-limits to question when Romney compares the Palestinians and the Israelis?

Is he implying that all the problems of the Middle East are economic, and that perhaps the Palestinians are just envious? That's the way Romney's mind seems to work, with money and privilege being the only goals people aspire to in his private world.  What about just having enough to take care of your children? What about keeping your ancestral land?

He loves to invoke all that weight of the Holy Bible, plus the Book of Mormon in a roundabout way, but forgets that the Palestinians are vastly more connected to Jerusalem than his mythical Lost Tribe of Israel here in the United States.  I think most people who comment on Romney are missing that crucial point - Romney thinks he and his wife have more "divine right" to be there in Jerusalem than a people who have lived there for thousands of years.

Romney is just way out of his depth on the international stage, and sounds more like Sarah *doofus* Palin every day.

The White House had this to say through Deputy Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, via MSNBC:

"One of the challenges of being an actor on the international stage, particularly when you’re traveling to such a sensitive part of the world, is that your comments are very closely scrutinized for meaning, for nuance, for motivation," Earnest said, adding, "and it is clear that there are some people who have taken a look at those comments and are scratching their heads a little bit.”
When pressed, Earnest stopped short of elaborating on the larger implications of Romney’s comments.
“I would leave it to Gov. Romney to explain them, to the extent that there’s some measure of confusion."

You can say that again! Confusion reigns, although spokesperson Andrea Saul says Romney's words "grossly mischaracterized" although it's difficult to see just how Romney was misunderstood. Perhaps if the Romney advisers were doing a better job of helping their guy choose his words more carefully, and avoid all these racist dog whistles, everything would make more sense.

Mr. Romney, please go into a "quiet room" and think about it!

Wall Street Journal: Romney Irks Palestinians

Mr. Romney's figures Monday were inaccurate and underestimated the actual GDP gap between the economies. Per capita GDP stood at $31,400 for Israel last year, while Palestinians' per capita GDP was $1,500 in 2010, according to an April 2012 World Bank report, which attributed the figure to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Palestinians also rejected the comparison as inappropriate, pointing out their lack of sovereignty and the limitations enforced by Israeli military authorities.

"If he checked his facts, he would know why the Palestinians actually have to build an economy when they have no freedom of movement, no human rights, no fundamental freedoms," said Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and a top official in the Palestine Liberation Organization. "We can't even control our natural resources, including our human resources; and then he compares us to our occupiers?"

Romney's "Strange" Taxes "Push Envelope to the Edge"

These two pundits really nail Romney on his mysterious taxes. Sorry, Ann, this story isn't going away any time soon.

Steve Rattner on CNN

"If you say to your tax people, as he seems to have done, 'I want every trick in the book. I want to push this to the edge,'" Rattner said during an appearance on "Fareed Zakaria GPS" on CNN. "I will tell you that as a private equity guy, I'm familiar with many of the things that he did. And I know many people who have done many of the things that he did. I do not know anyone who did everything that he did."
"Some of what he did, like the IRA, I have asked fellow private equity guys," Rattner said, referencing the account in which Romney has stored up to $100 million tax-free. "None of us had even known this was a possible trick, if you will. He has pushed the envelope all the way to the edge, to his benefit, and I think that Americans would find that pretty distasteful."

Chris Hayes on MSNBC Via RealClearPolitics

"Look, the taxes of high -- of extremely wealthy people are bizarre, strange and alienating," MSNBC's Chris Hayes said on "The Last Word" tonight. "And the reason is that they pay people a lot of money to game the system. That's explicitly what it is. And the more of that you see -- literally if you chose someone with Mitt Romney's net worth at random and looked at their tax returns, they would look crazy. You wouldn't be able to understand them. They would have all sort of bizarrely constituted corporations incorporated in the Cayman Islands. They might have a Swiss bank account to bet against the dollar. They would have all these things."

"What's so remarkable to me about the story is that the embarrassment here isn't personal," Hayes observed. "The embarrassment is about what this says about how the entire system functions. This is how the system functions. We no longer have the ability in this country to really tax people at the top. And that is the existential statement about the strength of the American state which is: Can you actually tax the wealthiest people in your society? If you can't, if you can't like Greece couldn't, we see how that goes." "Societies that are in decline or low on the development index have a very hard time extracting money, taxing money from the elites in their society. And that is the direction which we are headed and that is what is represented in the Mitt Romney tax return," he concluded. "Okay, that is an officially brilliant observation about what's going on here and what's at stake," host Lawrence O'Donnell said.

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Romneys Say "Trust Us, We're Rich"

Mother Jones has a slideshow of Mitt Romney looking unhappy on the campaign trail, and it's not surprising. What seems most depressing to the candidate is that ordinary people just won't trust him and believe whatever he says about his past business deals, his offshore accounts, and especially his old tax returns. To Mitt it is just unreal that he might be questioned or mocked over money, of all things, when money is what has come easiest for him in life up till now.

Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times about why the Romneys feel entitled to be unquestioned by  "we-the-people."

Pathos of the Plutocrat

Like everyone else following the news, I’ve been awe-struck by the way questions about Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, and his refusal to release tax returns have so obviously caught the Romney campaign off guard. Shouldn’t a very wealthy man running for president — and running specifically on the premise that his business success makes him qualified for office — have expected the nature of that success to become an issue? Shouldn’t it have been obvious that refusing to release tax returns from before 2010 would raise all kinds of suspicions? By the way, while we don’t know what Mr. Romney is hiding in earlier returns, the fact that he is still stonewalling despite calls by Republicans as well as Democrats to come clean suggests that it could be something seriously damaging.

Ann Romney is simply outraged that anyone would question her husband's ability as a financier, espcially that "undignified" President Obama. In an interview with ABC News yesterday, she got quite huffy when asked about their tax returns, which led to the not-politically-savvy move of making a remark with the now trending-on-Twitter phrase "You People" which some have taken as dismissive and condescending.

Honestly, Ann Romney doesn't sound like a seasoned political wife, and this stonewalling strikes me as a form of deep denial about the state of her husband's campaign right now. How long do they think they can wait on the tax returns?  Sorry, Ann ~ "Trust Us, We're Rich" just isn't going to cut it. In fact, that's a line many con men use to lure suckers, and "we people" just aren't as stupid as you think.




From ABC News

Robin Roberts: One distraction has been the tax returns. Both Bushes gave multiple years, ten, twelve years. President Obama gave 7 years of tax returns. Your husband has been adamant about only the two years that have been released. Why won't he follow the example of others on both sides of the aisle?

Ann Romney: You know, I think there's reasons for all of these things. You should really look at where Mitt has led his life, where he's been financially. He's a very generous person. We give 10% of our income to our church every year. Do you think that's the kind of person who is trying to hide things or do things? No, he is so good about it. When he was governor of Massachusetts, didn't take a salary in the four years.

Robin Roberts: Why not show that then? Why not release the returns because then it's a moot point?

Ann Romney: Because there are so many things that will be open again for more attack, and you just want to give more material for more attack. And that's really -- that's just the answer. We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life. . .

On the attacks from the Obama administration over Bain outsourcing and whether Romney lied in his SEC filings:

Ann Romney: I'm not disappointed, I'm not surprised but I think it was beneath the dignity of the office of the president. to do something as egregious as that. To do something on that level, I believe it was beneath the dignity of the presidency.