"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Not a Good Week for Romney: Romney Flips to Anti Choice (Again); Told to Quit Using Those Killed in Libya in Speeches, and Biden Schools Ryan on the Facts

Does this mean Romney is back to having to shore up his hard right base again?   Never have seen anything like this where the candidate makes a statement and then his consultants/press people do clean up afterwards.  

Which Romney is going to show up for the debate this week is what a lot of people want to know?  Bet Obama is prepared this time for anything that Romney has to say.  Really hard to handle a debate when your opponent has done a 180 and lies so much during the debate.  Biden did a great job of handling Ryan and his lies for the Romney camp.  Does Ryan know that he has shot his credibility completely by being the VP candidate who lies almost as much as Romney?

What is with all the lies from the Romney camp?  People I used to admire like Gillespie are now out there spinning and or outright lying for Romney on where he stands on the issues.  Seems they cannot let the candidate speak what he believes (if he believes anything) if it is counter to what the hard right wants.

The Romney/Ryan camp has no class, ethics, or  integrity but has plenty of gall to use some of the stump speech stories like these to push their campaign forward:
  • The mother of Glen Doherty, a Navy SEAL who was one of four Americans killed in the Sept. 11 attack in Libya, told a Boston TV station that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney shouldn't politicize her son's death.  
In the same speech, Romney went on to describe how Doherty was actually in a different building across town from the consulate, but went there to help once he heard about the attack. 
"This is the American way," Romney said. We go where there's trouble. We go where we're needed. And right now we're needed. Right now the American people need us."  (my emphasis)
  • Much buzz re Ryan telling a (canned) car crash story in a debate with a man whose first wife & young daughter died in just such a crash.

  • The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.  “It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,” Jan Stevens, 77, said in a telephone interview from his home in Loomis, California, as he prepares for a memorial service for his son next week.
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has criticized President Barack Obama for not providing adequate security in Libya, saying the administration has left the country exposed to a deadly terrorist attack. The ambassador’s father, a lawyer, said politicians should await the findings of a formal investigation before making accusations or judgments.  
“The security matters are being adequately investigated,” Stevens said. “We don’t pretend to be experts in security. It has to be objectively examined. That’s where it belongs. It does not belong in the campaign arena.” Stevens said he has been getting briefings from the State Department on the progress of the investigation. 

It was bad enough when Romney compared his Mormon mission in France to those serving in the military during Vietnam after getting a deferment from the Mormon Church.   Lot of bullets flying from the Viet Cong in France don't you know. (sarcasm)  Then he compared his sons Mormon missions and working in his campaign to serving in the military which is an insult to everyone who serves in the miitary.

Now he was using the Navy Seal he met who he couldn't remember 20 minutes after he met him at an event as four times Romney introduced himself according to what Doherty told his friend.  Saying Romney 'teared' up was a ruse IMHO because he couldn't remember meeting him at the time of the event.  Nothing compares though to what Romney said comparing his campaign to the two security people who gave their lives to help save the Ambassador and the embassy:
"This is the American way," Romney said. We go where there's trouble. We go where we're needed. And right now we're needed. Right now the American people need us."  
Rachael Maddow has it right about the Romney comments:
Rachel Maddow Wednesday night took issue with Romney's ham-fisted effort to compare Doherty's sacrifice with his own run for office. "Part of the problem is, here, Mr. Romney equating his running for office with the bravery Mr. Doherty had displayed trying to save lives in the armed attack in Benghazi," she said.
Maddow noted that this is hardly the first time Romney has tried to profit politically from the Libya attacks, recalling his bungled response to the Obama Administration's handling of the attack, while it was still going on.
"Since before the attack was even over in Benghazi," Maddow said. "the Romney campaign has tried and tried and tried to make some political hay out of it, to take political advantage of the fatal attack on the American consulate in Libya. It started before the attack was over, before American deaths had been confirmed there. It has continued with Mr. Romney's efforts to loop into his campaign now one of the Americans killed in that attack, as a sort of unwilling political surrogate after he's died." 

A lot of us have also objected to House Republicans led by Issa holding a hearing on Libya before the final investigation is complete.  It seems to a lot of people the House GOP was hoping to cast the Administration in a bad light.  Yet the Republicans including Paul Ryan voted against funds for increased security at the Embassies around the world.

One Republican, Congressman Jason Chaffez (R-UT) interrupted testimony to point out that the photo contained the location of CIA base on the map.  Chaffez couldn't keep his mouth shut as he decided to grandstand and in the process revealed classified information.  Minutes after Chaffetz’s outburst, committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) ordered the photo be taken down.
“Too bad he didn’t think of that before putting the CIA on C-SPAN,” Milbank said.
Milbank is 100% correct.  IMHO Issa should have held a closed hearing but that wouldn't have benefited the Romney camp so it was on CPAN.

Then to add to Romney's bad week, Joe Biden schooled Paul Ryan at the debate on Thursday night after Ryan kept lying and trying to repeat the lies of Romney.  It was awesome to see Biden in action.  GOP complained about his laughing but what is a candidate to do when his opponent is telling Whoppers right and left.  The funniest thing I saw was comments about how Biden picked on a kid -- Ryan is a long time Congressman in his 40's not some kid even if he acted like he was.  Do you want him a heartbeat away from being President?

This group of Republicans deserve to lose big in this election with their obstructionist tactics along with investigations by the House on issues they believe will hurt the President the most instead of what hurts the Country.  Who made these leadership assignments on Committees -- Boehner or Cantor?

1 comment:

SJ Reidhead said...

So how do we mark the scorecard. This is starting to look like the glory days of Sparky Captain Hook Anderson when he kept pulling his not so great pitchers, in order to keep the Big Red Machine in a game. He was constantly pulling pitchers. BTW, it is a managerial style with which I agree.

I bring this up, because we're trying to keep a "scorecard" on Romney's flip, flops, detours, changes, and back-tracks. You scratch something out, put in something new, and keep going. One of these days, he's going to run out of room. Then what? Do you "X" everything out and use a red pen?

Or, do we simply give him a dry-erase board and hope he doesn't inhale the markers. Good thing the man's a Mormon and doesn't drink or the GOP would be in deep you-know what. Mitt Romney sober is bad enough. Think about the disaster he would be if drunk?

SJR
The Pink Flamingo