Dr. Blanchard calls "inept" and "morally craven" the efforts of the American embassy in Cairo to cool the tensions fueling the now deadly attacks on our facilities in the Muslim world. Facing down angry mobs backed with rocket launchers, our diplomatic staff may deserve some leeway to tell the Muslim radicals, "Hey! Your beef is with Terry Jones, not us!"
Just as morally craven are Mitt Romney's statements from his comfy chair politicizing a foreign policy crisis. He shamefully propagates the false meme that the Obama Administration has gone around the world apologizing for America. He pretends to know foreign policy when he can't even go to the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.
At the same time Romney was pontificating, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear that no free speech, no matter how offensive, justifies violence. President Barack Obama says insulting other people's religions isn't cool, but "we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants."
The President and Secretary of State have serious work to do. Mitt Romney has a failing campaign to salvage; in his desperation, he will say anything to cling to his White Horse fantasy.
Blanchard is Sibby with better orthographic skills.
OMG: Romney is self-immolating!
South Dakotans have a conservative alternative to clueless Willard Romney.
A new CNN poll finds Gary Johnson’s inclusion, along with the Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein, hurts Republican candidate Mitt Romney more than it does President Barack Obama.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/spoiler-alert-poll-finds-small-following-for-libertarian-candidate/?hpt=po_t1
Dr. Blanchard's readings of the statements by people under attack as craven apologies does a gross disservice to the institution where he is supposed to practice an academic profession.
Before the facts are known, both Blanchard and Romney begin shooting their mouths off, showing that the Fire-Ready-Aim mentality of the Republican neocon war mongers is still alive and well.
Romney is reprehensible in his crass politicization of this crisis as it was happening. He proved this morning that his total lack of a foreign policy and foreign policy experience cannot be masked with empty platitudes.
His little smirks at his press conference show that he has no respect for those that lost their lives or the gravity of the situation beyond his own narcissistic needs.
Horrified at his party's struggling nominee, Willard Romney, Sen. McCain said, "Just watched an excellent and moving stmt by Sec. Clinton- just the right message and tone."
KB gets carried away sometimes. Doesn't think things through. Just pretends like he does.
Here's some comments ripping Romney from GOP leaders that Blanchard should take personally.
Peggy Noonan: "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors in the past few hours."
Joe Scarborough: “I've been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney's response was a mistake.â€
Mark Halperin: “Unless the Romney campaign has gamed this crisis out in some manner completely invisible to the Gang of 500, his doubling down on criticism of the President for the statement coming out of Cairo is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign.â€
"They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up," said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an "utter disaster" and a "Lehman moment" — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.
"I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy," said the Republican. "This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it."
A third Republican, a former Bush State Department official, told BuzzFeed, "It wasn't presidential of Romney to go political immediately — a tragedy of this magnitude should be something the nation collectively grieves before politics enters the conversation."
"Romney blew it and revealed how seriously maladroit he is when it comes to foreign affairs and national security," said Steve Clemons, the founder of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "An attack on an Embassy, the murder of U.S. officials including an Ambassador, is an attack on all Americans and the idea of America — and Romney gave terrorists what they want — a divided country still torn emotionally and politically by the events of 9-11. Romney talks of leadership but with his reckless commentary when events were fragile and still unfolding, he belly-flopped."
Romney's best strategy would be to keep his mouth shut between now and the election. Every time he opens it he removes all doubt that he is irrelevant.
No doubt he intended it to resemble some super patriot homily to help his pal Romney’s failing campaign, but his post makes Blanchard appear as a self-indulgent bloviated boob. Toss another Koran on the fire, right Ken?
As for Romney, he proved today and yesterday he has no class or common sense. September 11 has been a “politics free†day for obvious reasons, but yesterday, while discussing the tragedy of 9/11, Romney couldn’t avoid abusing the audience with a swipe at his opponent. Today, Romney exploited the killing of the U.S. Ambassador by an angry mob to throw mud, again avoiding the opportunity to appear Presidential.
Romney’s clawing away at any possible target makes his campaign appear desperate. He could find better campaign advice from Clint Eastwood’s empty chair.
@ArgusMontgomery is covering Libertarian VP candidate Judge Jim Gray at USD. Just now: "They are so much the same, we call them Robomney."
Saw an observation that Mitt just invited the news cycle to move away from his supposed strengths to his lack of foreign policy. Any guesses that this bad story for Mitt goes beyond Sunday? Check out this tweet from David Gregory of Meet the Press.
David Gregory â€@davidgregory
"Romney appears to have launched a political attack even before facts of embassy violence were known. Then uses day to issue vague FP vision"
The Romney campaign sends out these talking points for his surrogates to use...if he has any on this topic:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/romney-camp-tries-to-manage-fallout-from-libya-response/
My favorite:
– We have seen a foreign policy of weakness and decline in American influence and respect. Yesterday, we saw the consequences of this perceived weakness.
my belief is you shouldn't make political attack in the midst of a tragic event. And if you do make the attack you better have your facts straight. Romney attacked, without the facts, that is a problem
This is from a man who, because of blind faith and/or complete lack of courage, allowed his message - the only thing he has to control at the moment - to be hijacked by an old man and a chair.
Blanchard invokes Christopher Hitchens, the acolyte of atheism, to defend his position. Here is what Hitchens said about the situation:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/02/stand_up_for_denmark.html
Good overview of who said what here. I don't see any other way to paint this other than Romney's sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong without having all the facts and trying to paint people under fire in a bad light.
Pure political grandstanding at the expense of National unity at a time of crisis. Shame on you, Mitt.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/romneys-political-pretzel-over-libya/
The Washington Post has termed Romney's statement as a discredit to his campaign. A bit tepid. His entire campaign is a discredit to the country. The Post's editorial states:
"At a news conference, Mr. Romney claimed that the administration had delivered “an apology for America’s values.†In fact, it had done no such thing: Religious tolerance, as much as freedom of speech, is a core American value. The movie that provoked the protests, which mocks the prophet Mohammed and portrays Muslims as immoral and violent, is a despicable piece of bigotry; it was striking that Mr. Romney had nothing to say about such hatred directed at a major religious faith."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-death-of-an-ambassador/2012/09/12/ed3b719e-fcfa-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html?hpid=z2
President Obama to CBS: "Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later."
Mitt's not been doing a very good job of renouncing that kind of crap. He lets the "birther" stuff slide and in general tends to pander to the extreme right of the GOP even when they go off the deep end.
Uh oh...Romney's credibility has lost Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/tony-perkins-obama-libya-attack_n_1877996.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Romney will be lucky if the GOP doesn't make him ride in a kennel strapped to the top of his own campaign bus.
If Romney resigns his candidacy as the result of his third and worst foreign affairs gaffe, what's the process to legally replace him on the GOP ticket? This has to be fatal to being able to win. He's managed to remove any hope of getting the discussion back to the nation's ailing economy, which was the Republicans' only winning card.
Romney plus Ryan challenges math models. They demonstrate that zero plus zero = minus 1.
I wouldn't call massive tax cuts as a remedy for our economy a winning card.
Good point, Justin. The issue is the winning card, their solution is hopelessly off pitch. Romney/Ryan is the most incompetent GOP ticket I've seen in my lifetime.
I wrote this earlier today referring to Sara Palin and Romeny, but think it applies here too.
Free speech is a wonderful right, but with it comes responsiblities. It is amazing a few just have to have their opinion out there, with out knowing all the facts and with out regard of the consequences. These "children" need to go sit in a corner and be quiet and ponder what their words have done or could do.
We, citizens have no idea what all is happening "behind the scenes". Both are too full of themselves and too stupid to be involved in this issue or any other issue involving government, dipolmacy or foreign affairs. A muzzle would be nice, free speech or not, as I sure do not want to get into another war
Ahhh...Mitt's foot in mouth disease has become terminal! LOL
Is it just me or is Romney's smirk both disgusting and disconcerting?
https://twitter.com/CharlesDharapak/status/245893711257563136/photo/1/large
It's not just you, LK.
It's interesting that Romney of all people would utterly miss the point of religious tolerance as a fundamental American value. When I mention some of the whackier tenets of his Mormon faith, I catch all sorts of hell on Facebook. No one has stormed my walls or fired a rocket launcher at me, but the Romney boosters I know get pretty hot about anyone casting aspersions on their prophet.
The Hitchens article is a good read, David. Hitchens also notes that the Bush Administration responded to the 2006 Muslim attacks against Denmark with this State Department statement:
"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."
Hmmm... how did Mitt Romney view that statement?
Cory : One would now have to believe that he would view that statement as an apology for American values- Go figure?
Cory and the Press just need to let ol' Mittens do all the talking. I have no doubt that if he is left alone to speak for himself, then, he'll be all alone come election day! LOL
G, we should be so lucky. But no matter what Mitt says, we still need to act at the very least as amplifiers, if not active fact-checkers and rebutters.