[Vision2020] Mitt’s Major Meltdown

Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 07:31:50 PDT 2012


  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

<http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&sn2=336c557e/4f3dd5d2&sn1=84de2ffb/98f1fc94&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787510c_nyt5&ad=BOSW_120x60_June13_NoText&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fbeastsofthesouthernwild>

------------------------------
September 12, 2012
Mitt’s Major Meltdown By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

Mitt Romney broke our deal.

Perhaps he didn’t know he’d made it, although, really, I thought it was
pretty clear.

He could do anything he wanted during this campaign as long as he sent out
signals that once he got in the White House he was not likely to be truly
crazy.

We, in return, were going to be able to continue with our normal sleeping
patterns through the fall.

It didn’t seem to be a lot to ask, but when the crisis in the Middle East
flared up, Romney turned out to have no restraining inner core. All the
uneasy feelings you got when he went to London and dissed the Olympic
organizers can now come into full bloom. Feel free to worry about anything.
That he’d declare war on Malta. Lock himself in a nuclear missile silo and
refuse to come out until there’s a tax cut. Hand the country over to space
aliens.

Here is the Republican candidate for president of the United States on
Wednesday, explaining why he broke into a moment of rising international
tension and denounced the White House as “disgraceful” for a mild statement
made by the American Embassy in Cairo about the importance of respecting
other people’s religions:

“They clearly — they clearly sent mixed messages to the world. And — and
the statement came from the administration — and the embassy is the
administration — the statement that came from the administration was a —
was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a — a — a severe
miscalculation.”

Feel free to reread this when you’re staring at the ceiling at 4 a.m.

This all began on Sept. 11. There were protests in the Middle East, at
least some of them involving an anti-Islamic movie, “Innocence of Muslims,”
which depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a cowardly, drunken torturer of
children and old women. I did not see any puppies being dismembered, but
then I only watched the 14-minute trailer.

A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile told The Wall Street Journal that
he made it in California with $5 million from more than 100 donors.
However, nothing Bacile said about himself seemed to hold up in the light
of day. And if he did raise $5 million, those donors need to hire a lawyer.
The trailer looks as though it was made by a 13-year-old boy with access to
a large supply of fake beards.

The film popped up on YouTube dubbed in Arabic, stirring outrage. In
response, the American Embassy in Cairo said it deplored “the continuing
efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims
— as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

Does that seem all that bad to you, people? It was definitely a film whose
only point was to offend people of the Islamic faith. I would also call
whoever made it not well-guided.

It isn’t clear how the movie, the protests in Egypt and the murders of four
American diplomats in Libya fit together. That’s the job of intelligence
experts. We’re stuck with the task of evaluating Mitt Romney, who went for
a cheap attack at a time when any calm, mature adult would have waited and
opted for at least a brief show of national unity.

The one big advantage to being a boring candidate is that you give the
appearance of calm and stability. But, suddenly, Romney seemed to want to
go for a piquant mélange of dull and hotheaded.

Virtually nobody seemed to think this was all that great a plan. The Romney
campaign, according to CNN, helpfully passed out suggestions for supporters
who might want to defend Mitt. (When asked whether he was too quick on the
attack, loyalists were supposed to say: “No. It is never too soon to stand
up for American values and interests.”)

But not all that many other Republicans seemed excited about joining in. A
few social conservatives did unveil a hitherto-unnoticed passion for the
First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom to make fun of religion. “It was
disheartening to hear the administration condemn Americans engaging in free
speech that hurt the feelings of Muslims,” said Senator Jim DeMint.

And, let’s see, who else. Donald Rumsfeld tweeted support. Party chairman
Reince Priebus chimed in: “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad
and pathetic.” Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona said the embassy’s comment “is
like the judge telling the woman that got raped, ‘You asked for it because
of the way you dressed.’ That’s the same thing.”

On this side: Mitt Romney, a totally disgraced former secretary of defense,
a person named Reince Priebus, and a new Republican rape comment.

Two months to go and we’re rethinking our presumption that the Republican
primary voters picked the most stable option.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20120913/fa58636e/attachment.html>


More information about the Vision2020 mailing list