General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Romney was faced with an important leadership test last night. He failed spectacularly." (updated)
By Steve Benen
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It seems as if Romney has finally gone too far. NBC News' First Read called out "one of the most over-the-top and (it turns out) incorrect attacks of the general-election campaign," which looks "worse and worse" as more information comes to light.
This was news-cycle campaigning by the Romney campaign gone awry. Why didn't the Romney campaign wait until it had all the facts? On his overseas trip in the summer, Romney was so careful not to criticize Obama while on foreign soil. But how much time do you give an administration to work through a diplomatic and international crisis before trying to score immediate political points? You'd expect the Sarah Palins of the world to quickly pounce on something like this, and she predictably did. But a presidential nominee running for the highest office in the land?
After the facts have come out, last night's Romney statement only feeds the narrative that his campaign is desperate.
ABC News' Jake Tapper had a related report, noting the challenges facing the Obama administration in light of developments in Libya and Egypt, but also highlighting Romney's mistake.
GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will likely face questions of his own today, not only about his foreign policy views (Romney had at least five different positions on Libya as of last October) but about his statesmanship.
Before news spread that four Americans had been killed in Benghazi, Romney yesterday issued a statement saying in part: "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."
This is an attack that does not stand up to simple chronology.
The Republican candidate was so eager to attack the president that he ended up lying while trying to exploit the deaths of four Americans abroad.
Romney was faced with an important leadership test last night. He failed spectacularly.
Update: Romney is speaking on the violence on camera now.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/12/13828189-romney-fails-critical-leadership-test
Updated status of Romney appearance.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)Roy Rolling
(6,941 posts)Romney simply doesn't have the qualifications to be a commander-in-chief. He and his cohorts cannot be trusted with the mantle of leadership.
lebkuchen
(10,716 posts)caseymoz
(5,763 posts). . . having his campaign limp along until November, will. It's going to be seven weeks of blame and bitterness.
What makes it particularly funny and interesting is that billionaires put up hundreds of millions to win this election, and Romney just laid an egg on their plans, and will continue to make it worse until November. Those sorts of guys want a return on their investment. If they buy an election, they expect to be given an election. I mean, to them, this is an investment gone extremely bust.
Therefore, it's hard to say who's going even have anything to do with Romney after his career comes to a merciful end in November. Lobbyist is probably not going to be a career choice.
lebkuchen
(10,716 posts)I sure hope a democratic congress is the result. Two months to go...
DURHAM D
(32,611 posts)I am overwhelmed by his smug attitude and the smirk on his face.
Why is he amused?
RC
(25,592 posts)Mitt thinks he has gained some points here. Clueless doesn't begin to cover it.
AllyCat
(16,234 posts)A dumb one too.
karynnj
(59,506 posts)He has no real compassion for the people who died and their families. It is the same robot like Romney who sees everything only in terms of the race. Not to mention, he does not want to have the full truth before speaking.
Contrast that to the somber looks and demeanor of both Obama and Clinton.
Your observation, which many will see or at least get subliminally, and the he fact that almost all Republican foreign policy people have not been happy with this, will lose him the moderate Republicans in the voting population.
As a Jew, I am stunned and horrified that the film was made by an Israeli American and funded by right wing Jews. Jewish history includes so many pogroms that were ignited by Passion plays or books like the Council of Elders, which both could be seen as their century's equivalent of this speech. This is despicable.
Care Acutely
(1,370 posts)When he thinks they have scored him poll points.
WeNeedBetterGovernmt
(25 posts)Romney just wants to play President. That doesn't make him a good candidate!
calimary
(81,523 posts)tex-wyo-dem
(3,190 posts)he witnessed the looks on people's faces that were getting layed off from companies that Bain was about to part-out and sell for a profit.
A #1 asshole.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)First it's on, then it's off, then it's on again. Great display of leadership and decisiveness!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)mnmoderatedem
(3,730 posts)and making a statement in a typically uninformed tea partierish manner
pampango
(24,692 posts)like he really is one at the most inappropriate moment.
Most of us believe that he represents the corporate wing of the GOP and is just playing at being a teabagger because he thinks that will help him get elected. And the corporate wing is winking at him figuring they can ignore the base once Mitt is elected.
However this crisis was an opportunity for him to show undecided voters that he is a real statesman and can handle foreign crisis that pop up in any presidents term. He failed miserable by playing to the teabaggers one more time.
Aldo Leopold
(685 posts)reduced to nothing more than just hoping/waiting for any perceived "slip" by Obama and pouncing on it. Total fuck up.
beac
(9,992 posts)And yes, Rmoney's campaign strategy seems to be based in the debating tactics of a third grade playground.
classof56
(5,376 posts)n/t
rock
(13,218 posts)Welcome, to DU. What took you so long. We've been waiting for you.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)Response to Aldo Leopold (Reply #7)
littlemissmartypants This message was self-deleted by its author.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)He and fox and other repubs will claim the chronology is true and that will be the end of that. They'll always believe that President Obama "sympathized" with those that waged the attacks and that will be that. It may matter to some independents but it won't matter to the repub party.
Generic Brad
(14,276 posts)That strategy has worked well for him in the past on a multitude of other issues.
Vox Moi
(546 posts)Never surrender your values to common sense!
Dosen't this sound a bit like 'Bring 'em on'?
This response is perfectly in line with the truculent, abrasive approach to foreign policy that Mitt has displayed with respect to Russia and Israel's desire to attack Iran.
Four Americans dead and Mitt is trying to spin it into a political gain.
Ineeda
(3,626 posts)grave dancing once removed. He really doesn't care a whit about the victims or the complicated political climate, but boy-oh-boy (gleefully rubbing hands together) he can't wait to condemn the president, and only to advance his campaign. He will never, ever be a leader.
Vietnameravet
(1,085 posts)Is there anything these bastards will not say? any level they will not stoop too?
JHB
(37,163 posts)Witness the entire career of Newt Gingrich.
Response to ProSense (Original post)
bupkus This message was self-deleted by its author.
raging_moderate
(147 posts)I just knew all those years practicing verbal gymnastics and ethical contortionism would pay off in the end.....
Whisp
(24,096 posts)Honestly, I think the only thing he was ever taught was how to count money and nothing else. Nothing.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)he couldn't have looked any less presidential.
StrictlyRockers
(3,855 posts)This guy is not qualified to be Mayor of Provo, let alone President!
TheCowsCameHome
(40,169 posts)Thank you, from your friends on the democratic side.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)Romney is desperate.
Pryderi
(6,772 posts)lexw
(804 posts)I believe Romney (as a one time CEO) is used to having people listen with awe to his ideas (aka brown-nosing), and as such has a huge egowhich keeps him from listening to anyone else. So all these dumb-a$$ mistakes are his own idea.
TheCowsCameHome
(40,169 posts)He likes it that way because they feed him what he wants to hear.
Cha
(297,774 posts)usaf-vet
(6,215 posts)..... that has ALWAYS been able to manipulate his environment by writing a check, hiring PR firms, hiring attorneys, lying, cheating and stealing to get whatever he wants. He is a bully who doesn't like to lose. A bully with a big enough check book to win. He is a sociopath with no compassion.
Hopefully he won't be able to buy our presidency.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)FSogol
(45,542 posts)judesedit
(4,443 posts)than war-monger Rmoney. However you want to say it, he's a cold, cold-hearted shell of a man.
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)Down to the big pile of do-doo on the floor that he'll try and walk away from...but too much is stuck to his shoes. I wonder who'll get stuck with cleaning up the mess he created?
Turbineguy
(37,372 posts)"I was going to fire that Ambassador anyway!"
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)If this asshole ever got near the White House, the next war we would get into would be the last one.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)The signs were there. This asshole was never qualified to be President.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Citizens who are too stupid to realize they vote their own pockets to be picked clean by smrking millionaires who despise them.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)fishwax
(29,149 posts)Not surprising coming from that campaign.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)CrispyQ
(36,534 posts)without ever being called out on it. He's in uncharted waters & sinking.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Pauldg47
(640 posts)...does not remark on this?! What goes on here?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I havent weighed in on Romneys awesomely awful intervention on events in Egypt and Libya; with even Republicans joining in the chorus of shocked disapproval, not much I can add.
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There will probably be some voters moved directly against Romney by this spectacle, and none moved toward him. Yes, there are quite a few Americans who are willing to believe that the man who has been president for three and a half years and who killed Bin Laden actually sympathizes with terrorists. But everyone in those fever swamps is already an Obama-hater, and Romney has just made himself look small and hysterical to everyone else.
But the real impact probably comes via the press.
Ive seen some comparisons between Mitt Romneys position right now and that of George W. Bush after the Democratic convention in 2000, and by the numbers there is some resemblance. But what really happened in the final months of that election? The answer not a popular one with journalists, but very obviously true to anyone who lived through it was that the press took sides. Reporters liked Bush and didnt like Gore, and as a result they treated Bush with kid gloves while gleefully passing on every smear against his opponent (Gore says he invented the internet! No, he never did).
That probably wasnt going to happen this time in any case. But now Romney has really ensured that everyone in the news media, the GOP propaganda organs aside, is going to view him with distaste and alarm as well they should.
- more -
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/why-the-vileness-matters/
Inuca
(8,945 posts)CRAVEN
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)just a feeling.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Mitt's trucking along, now claiming that Obama will lie in the debates.