Seeking the “true” Romney is like seeking Bigfoot
The core problem with Mitt Romney is, well, his core. As in he apparently doesn’t have one. This is a man who can say the following in an interview yesterday with NBC’s Ron Allen, when asked about his lack of empathy …
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“Don’t forget, I got everybody in my state insured. One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there’s anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.”
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…. and then literally a few minutes later stand in front of a crowd and say this:
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“I will repeal Obamacare and replace it with real health care reform. You see, Obamacare is really Exhibit No. 1 of the president’s political philosophy, and that is that government knows better than people how to run your lives. It is a view that government should stand between you and your doctor. I don’t believe in a bigger and bigger government…I believe in freedom.”
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I think that’s remarkable. If creating such a system is evidence of empathy, what does it say about a person who seeks to dismantle such a system? How can a person go from one statement to another without an apparent hitch, and seemingly with equal sincerity? Which statement reflects the “true” Romney?
I do not know. I am baffled by the man. In fact, given such statements, the more pertinent question may be: Can a “true” Romney even be said to exist?
– Jay Bookman
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721 comments Add your comment
Madmax
September 28th, 2012
7:29 am
Stands – and the presidents solution to it is to blame Bush and the evil rich and big business. How is that solving the issue? As you say “How apparent adults can regurgitate such literally fantastic nonsense is truly mind-boggling at times”
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
7:31 am
I’m shocked, shocked, that someone in the corporate media actually asks the question posed in the headline.
I wasn’t sure most Americans even thought of Iranians as human, but who knows. Maybe we’re not quite the psychopaths I thought…
http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/how-many-civilians-would-be-killed-in-an-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites/
While Iranians are increasingly fretful of an imminent attack, they remain broadly unaware of just how devastating the human impact could be. Even a conservative strike on a handful of Iran’s nuclear facilities, a recent report predicts, could kill or injure 5,000 to 80,000 people. The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble, a report written by an Iranian-American scientist with expertise in industrial nuclear-waste management, notes that a number of Iran’s sites are located directly atop or near major civilian centers. One key site that would almost certainly be targeted in a bombing campaign, the uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, houses 371 metric tons of uranium hexafluoride and is located on the city’s doorstep; toxic plumes released from a strike would reach the city center within an hour, killing as many as 70,000 and exposing over 300,000 to radioactive fallout. These plumes would “destroy their lungs, blind them, severely burn their skin and damage other tissues and vital organs.” The report’s predictions for long-term toxicity and fatalities are equally stark. “The numbers are alarming,” says Khosrow Semnani, the report’s author, “we’re talking about a catastrophe in the same class as Bhopal and Chernobyl.”
But hey, you can’t make an omlette without breaking a few eggs, right?
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
7:33 am
Stands – and the presidents solution to it is to blame Bush and the evil rich and big business.
Well no, it isn’t. The solution this Administration proposes, as I understand it, is to incrementally steer this nation toward a more rational tax code and negotiate some kind of spending cuts over time.
As for how we got into this mess, I think it’s completely reasonable to affix blame where it belongs. You don’t have to listen if you don’t want–on a certain level it’s not terribly important anyway, since what’s done is done.
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
7:33 am
math SHEETZ!
Madmax
September 28th, 2012
7:36 am
Stands – you can reverse the question too – how many civilians would be killed if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon? Probably a much larger number because that would probably provoke WW3. Of course our president wouldn’t call it terrorism as he has a hard time saying those words.
Brosephus™
September 28th, 2012
7:39 am
Who’s president? The president is responsible, doesn’t matter what he inherited, he is responsible for $16.065 trillion of it. It has gone up about 60% under his watch. He promised to lower it and he hasn’t delivered.
If that ain’t the granddaddy of all lies. I don’t think any president has promised to lower the debt. If Obama really did such a thing, I’m sure you can post a quote with a verifiable link.
TaxPayer
September 28th, 2012
7:41 am
More of the real Mitt:
Mitt Romney Gets Tax Break Off Firm Sending Jobs To China
Citizen of the World
September 28th, 2012
7:42 am
Yes, Jay, people in Massachusetts may eat “lobstah drenched in buttah,” but remember, we eat “cheesy grits,” so we deserve healthcare reform, too!
Don
September 28th, 2012
7:43 am
There is no “true” Romney. He is a pragmatist, not an ideologue. I think this means he’ll be a good administrator, but not a particularly good leader. Compare and contrast to the current guy…
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
7:46 am
how many civilians would be killed if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon?
Of course that’s a reasonable question to ask, and it’s something that (I’m sure) defense geeks have already modeled.
of course, they don’t actually have the means to launch such an attack, whereas we blithely discuss the desireability of the US or Israel taking out the nuclear capability with a bombing raid like it’s only a little messier than your kid’s Pixie Sticks in the back seat.
Of course our president wouldn’t call it terrorism as he has a hard time saying those words.
You are, likely, better than this, and probably ought to consider editing such gratuitous (and irrelevant) commentary.
Madmax
September 28th, 2012
7:46 am
Stands ” since what’s done is done” – on that we’re in agreement and fixing blame does not solve issues. Unfortunately I haven’t seen anything like the plan you cite above. The only thing I’ve seen consistantly cited by this president is repeal the high end of the “tax cuts” (his tax policy which would have an infitessimal impact on the deficit) and subsidize local government employees (his job plan which would add to the deficit for something that local governments are in control of) and there has been no movement on spending while passing a massive healthcare reform bill where nobody fully understands the true cost implications of it (I believe by design since he defferred much of it until after this election and some until the next).
Madmax
September 28th, 2012
7:55 am
Stands – your assumption that they don’t and can’t deliver is what the president has to figure out. That is a big assumption and with the nut case running that country, what if we get it wrong. As evidenced by the attack on our embassy, our intelligence gathering and reactions to it are starting to resemble that of GWB when he was told of weapons of mass destruction.
TiredOfIt
September 28th, 2012
8:03 am
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
7:17 am
Romney/Ryan 2012 Because we don’t need a hip/cool Campaigner in Chief…. We need a genuine hard working President for all Americans…
yeppers, when I think of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the first word that comes to mind is “genuine.
+++
Romney and Ryan are the antithesis of genuine.
stands for decibels
September 28th, 2012
8:21 am
I’ve really got to run, but Madmax–
That is a big assumption and with the nut case running that country, what if we get it wrong.
two things:
1) it may sound nitpicky, but there isn’t a “nut case” running Iran–their president is a mere figurehead, doing what an unelected theocratic committee more or less tells him to do. He couldn’t single-handedly order an attack on Israel; his military would laugh at him if he tried, I believe.
2) I do think there’s lunacy aplenty in the Iranian regime, but I seriously doubt they are so batcrap crazy that they would do what (say) Pakistan never has done with similar capabilities.
Of course you have to plan for unexpected events, and if the Iranians do procure or develop this offensive capability within the next few years, it will just be another problem to manage.
I respectfully submit that per-emptively bombing the crap out of their production facilities isn’t justifiable for a variety of reasons, and I’ll have to leave it at that for now.
/drive-by
Fact
September 28th, 2012
8:39 am
Brosephus @ 7:39
If that ain’t the granddaddy of all lies. I don’t think any president has promised to lower the debt. If Obama really did such a thing, I’m sure you can post a quote with a verifiable link.
From his mouth to your ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaQUU2ZL6D8
Joseph
September 28th, 2012
8:46 am
That’s laughable you would say that about Romney when your boy Obama has been the most secretive public figure in years….. Ayers, Wright, Rezco etc….
MikeB
September 28th, 2012
9:26 am
@ Stands & Tiredofit……….. When Romney is in a comparrison with Obama, its not even close who has been more genuine and responsible for their actions…….Romney by a landslide…
You people want to blame Bush for everything but conveniently neglect to mention that Democrats ran Congress for the last 2 years of his presidency (You don’t think that had something to do with the financial collapse?). You neglect to mention he wanted action on banking (Freddie & Fannie) reform as early as 2002…Got no help from Democrats who looked at him focusing on this as a Repub v. Dem thing rather than a cautionary tale of what was to come if the Fed did nothing……..
Yes he started 2 wars (One of which I did not agree with), but tell me a President who does everything exactley as you want? Certainly its not Obama…….Though he promised everything under the sun in 2008….He failed to deliver anything of substance when he had his Congressional “Supermajority” for the first 2 years of his term…Then the only time he moved on anything is when it moved the needle politically, not because it was the right thing to do……….. Is this what you call “genuine”???? Please………
Romney is not perfect, but compared to Obama, he is considerably more genuine and tells it more like it actually is, then pandering to what the group in front of him wants to hear……… He does not speak as well as Obama, but he doesn’t need a teleprompter as much either….
Romney/Ryan 2012… The considerably more “genuine” choice… Time for the cover ups, smears and the “Campaigner in Chief” to go….
TiredOfIt
September 28th, 2012
9:57 am
MikeB
September 28th, 2012
9:26 am
++
I will give one thing, Romney is a genuine liar.
MikeB
September 28th, 2012
12:50 pm
And Obama is not? How blind are you sir???? All politicians have skeletons in the closet…. Lets not be naive…… Obama could field a skeleton army with the ones in his closet…. Don’t be so blind.
Romney/Ryan 2012
Citizen of the World
September 28th, 2012
1:08 pm
Seeking the “true” Romney is like seeking Bigfoot — but if you want to find Bigfoot, just look in Romney’s mouth.
ehancock
September 28th, 2012
1:52 pm
Re: “The real Obama: College records sealed, birth certificate sealed,”
Obama’s college records are no more “sealed” than Mitt Romney’s records. Mitt has not shown his college records either. Neither are “sealed;’ both are simply private, protected by state and federal privacy laws. Either or both could chose to release those records. So far neither of them have.
Obama’s birth certificate is not “sealed’ either. He has showed both the short form and the long form birth certificate from Hawaii, and the officials in Hawaii have confirmed the facts on them repeatedly, and they are further confirmed by the public Index Data file and by the fact that the DOH (and only the DOH could) sent birth notices out for Obama to the “Health Bureau Statistics” sections of the Hawaii newspapers in 1961.