After Years of Birthers, Romney Hits Obama for “Hate”
WASHINGTON – After a Republican primary season and three years that included Republicans accusing Pres. Obama of not being an American, Mitt Romney’s outrage and the ensuing charges that followed seemed surreal. Romney has utilized the 2008 playbook of Obama from the start, playing the long game in the primaries, now shifting to the honor and integrity hill, because Romney himself has stayed out of the muck. That’s what surrogates are for, especially those unconnected in any way with the campaign.
It was a perfect moment for the diminished hockey mom to start squealing.
“There weren’t enough groans and boos when he said such a disgusting comment, really, especially to a demographic there that was includes 48 percent of the community being black Americans,” Palin said Tuesday night. “Greta, if that’s not the nail of the coffin. Really the strategists there in the Obama campaign have got to look at a diplomatic way of replacing Joe Biden on the ticket with Hillary.” – Sarah Palin [Politico]
Yet the lipsticked pitbull saw nothing wrong when she joined Donald Trump in birtherism, saying “more power to him,” because it’s always okay to question Barack Obama’s Americanism.
Equally outraged were the refs on “Morning Joe,” who couldn’t believe what Joe Biden said when he warned an audience that included African Americans that Romney-Ryan policies would “put y’all back in chains.” All that was missing between Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin this morning was a vile of smelling salts to be passed between them. I won’t quote Willie Geist, because his only contribution to any conversation on this show is to fluff the stars.
It took Jonathan Capehart to remind the Republican apologists that Obama’s entire first term has been riddled with anti-American, un-American and down right treasonist accusations from Republicans, all aimed at Barack Obama because he wasn’t sufficiently red, white and blue.
Mitt Romney never personally engaged in this stuff, but he had no trouble standing next to Donald Trump at a time when he was railing at Obama about his birth certificate. This despicable charge went all the way down the Republican ranks with a wink and a nod, with very few leaders on the right saying it was wrong.
What Team Romney is doing is about character, which is a very crafty attack. Digging in on Pres. Obama on character issues, including Joe Biden, in order to bring them down to size is smart politics, though the current path is low. To strip away the mantle of presidential incumbency and the respect inherent in the office itself, so the contest is on a level playing field, is a good tactic in an overall strategy that’s all about raising Romney to presidential.
Character is the one angle that can hurt Obama the most and Team Romney and his band of surrogates have it in their sights and the barrage won’t end until it’s over.
From Ben Smith at Buzzfeed:
Romney’s strategy had been different: To simply stay out of Obama’s way as he fell. The race, his aides promised, would be a referendum on Obama; Romney was an obviously acceptable alternative, a success in the private and public sector who had avoided being pinned down on policy and, whatever his flaws, could hardly be labeled extreme. Obama, the focus-group tested story went, was a nice guy out of his depth. Romney was the solution.
The ferocity of Obama’s assault on Romney’s character had already rattled this plan. On June 18, after a top Obama aide suggested that he could be a “felon,” Romney dropped the “nice guy” line.
“[Romney] has said Obama’s a nice fellow, he’s just in over his head,” an adviser told BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins. “But I think the governor himself believes this latest round of attacks that have impugned his integrity and accused him of being a felon go so far beyond that pale that he’s really disappointed. He believes it’s time to vet the president. He really hasn’t been vetted; McCain didn’t do it.”
Whenever you hear anyone saying “it’s time to vet the president,” you should know by now what that really means. That it’s a line straight from Sean Hannity tells you the rest.
Taylor Marsh, a veteran political analyst and former Huffington Post contributor, is the author of The Hillary Effect, available at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Her new-media blog www.taylormarsh.com covers national politics, women and power.
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Aside from not agreeing with the idea that Democrats were treading with Angels until they were forced to match the evil Republicans, I can only note with amusement that when Obama was referring to the charges about his negativism, he ironically use the very same sort of negativism, calling Romney’s remarks “unhinged”.
Clearly both parties can’t even keep such negative labels out of claims they aren’t being negative. But this is the wave of the future. Each party will use every remark by the other side to justify being just as negative in every campaign from now on. The only way we will ever break out of it is to break out of the partisan two party system that lets each side tear each other down secure in the belief that nobody can vote for anyone else.
We need voting reform. One example is…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
In the meantime, I know that I won’t vote for either party, since the only truly wasted vote is vote for more of this garbage. If nothing else, why not cast a write-in for “none of the above”?
davidpsummers, I guess the easiest way to be elected president is to change your name to “None Of The Above” and get people to vote for “None Of The Above”.
If only you had mentioned this when there was still time!
Romney-Ryan ticket easily avoids this sort of gaffe by never having black people in their audiences.
I kid, I kid. I would, however, like to see how the black people in the audience reacted. Something tells me they’re not going to switch to the party of “you people need jobs, not welfare” and “Obama has no idea what America is about” and the whole diversity-is-like-a-kitty-litter-omelet crowd. I’m just not seeing it…
Instead of arguing which party has made the most vile accusations we should just ask both parties to quit making them. Trump’s comments do not justify Biden’s, nor vice versa. Each side wants to accuse the other of gross hypocrisy in order to justify their own excesses.
DaGoat says:
AUGUST 15, 2012 AT 9:14 PM
It’s absolutely ridiculous to compare Trump’s birtherism with Biden’s gafferifficness.
Remember also that the media sends these remarks to new heights in the 24/7 new media, cable world.
As for a new voting reality, it should start by abolishing the Electoral College.
As always, thanks for weighing in.
Both campaigns have been incredibly nasty, but,if you ask me, the Obama administration has endured some of the worst negative attacks in history. He has always been the brunt of incredible lies and deceit. From the accusation that the ACA justifies allowing the government to pull the plug on granny, To Limbaugh’s, projection riddled rants that Obama is a racist, and the claims that The President is some sort of Manchurian candidate sent to destroy America, or that he is really a Muslim scheming for Jihad, these blatant lies continue to stoke an incredible list of even more lies that just goes on and on–A good number of Christian Fundamentalists are convinced he is the Anti-Christ and the Devils right hand guy.
For what does Obama deserve all these hateful attacks delivered and packaged in outrageous lies–I guess because he is a threat to pharmaceutical and Insurance Companies and also values creating green energy jobs–the mere thought of which makes Exxon Mobile quiver in its boots–convinced that they must dispute tons of data gathered over decades by exceptional scientists and, turn away truth for financial grains even as mother nature is finally forcing us to see the writing on the wall.
Of course this danger has been known for decades but has immediately been discredited and lied about by people better at circulating propaganda, rather than giving up even than one extra penny of their profits! So what if Obama has authorized more domestic drilling for oil than George W.Bush–as long as he wants environmental studies that hold up immediate financial gains, or even talks about transitioning to green energy–he is the culprit who must be stopped at all costs. Sure he may use some nasty ads of his own to give Mitt a fit, but they are nothing compared to the slander and abuse that has been heaped upon him.
Isn’t it horrible to conceive of a world where our children will not be dropped from medical coverage because of large costs or pre-existing conditions? How horrible to consider the poor lowlife masses actually being able to afford medical care! And How frightening to imagine a way to prevent carbon products from permanently damaging our world–doesn’t everyone see the secret fascist plot behind the curtain? The bible says we will know the unjust by their fruit. Isn’t is obvious that Obama wants to provide food, care, and opportunity for a good life for all of us? what a nefarious plot, from the devil’s spawn, and what a sly socialist attempt to redistribute our wealth!
The blame game is something both sides must play but maybe we should give credit to the side that really cares, instead of pointing fingers in our playground battlegrounds.
The right continues to stoke the sentiment that Obama has failed to bring back the economy, when the real reason some voters are skittish, is because it is not recovering fast enough. Even the fact that he brought us back from a precipitous fall, and restored jobs slowly and consistently is all forgotten.
I refuse to believe that Wall Street should not be given a good spanking when they play recklessly with our money again, and I refuse to believe AGAIN AND AGAIN, that freeing these financial players of all regulation and liability is what America really needs!
Obama has decided to accept super Packs but still receives much more funding from small donnars than Romney could ever gather. Instead Romney uses his self-righteous plea for campaign civility to hide his completely transparent and extreme policies in order to take the attention off of his own personal vices.
We live in a time when corporations are considered to be people who can donate any amount they want to preferred candidates and hide their identities when they do it. Are Republicans asking us to have pity on poor billionaires who might be unfairly intimidated or embarrassed by simply revealing their identities? Are we supposed to believe that Las Vegas fat cats who donate millions of dollars at a time, and extremely large contributors like the Koch brothers are only supporting the most courageous candidates who are our best chances to end this recession and thus,relieve the burdens of financial hardship from us all? I don’t know about you, but even if I were a billionaire,the decision to make donations of tens of millions of dollars at a time, would not come purely from the goodness of my heart–I would want to gain something as payback!
I know that campaigns need to be elevated to a level of greater fairness and should actually debate real issues, but, upholding a law like Citizens United is not the way to do it.
I just can’t help but curse Republicans once in a while. I detest the level of deception which they operate under, and, I wish the suckers would just blow away!
I’m not comparing the two statements other than to say they’re both stupid and wrong, and people should not give one a pass because of the other.
Its the fundamental synergy of the two party system.
During my lifetime as a close watcher of things political it’s been clear that republicans pretty much wrote the book on division and hate – in addition to out of context quoting, revisionist history and outright fabrication. Yes, democrats are not without sin, but this trend where people excuse excesses by dismissing matters of degree is utterly stupid and irresponsible.
The trend where people excuse excesses by using matters of degree as an excuse is also stupid and irresponsible.
@DaGoat
If you think ‘matters of degree’ are stupid and should be ignored do you also consider a ‘punch-in-the-nose’ assault to be the same as an assault using a baseball bat and breaking both arms and legs?
If not, why?
And, if you see the need for a matters of degree measure in the assault example why is it not also an important measure when comparing excesses?.. Or for that matter just about anything.
Well, DaGoat has already addressed the issue that, if they only differ by degree, then both parties are unacceptable. (I’m going to write in “None of the Above” I think).
Hopefully I won’t detract from this central truth to comment that I don’t even think they differ be degree all that much. The claim seems to revolve around assigning motives to the other side based on the assumption that your side is right.
When a proposal to privatize social security came a long almost 10 years ago, the Democrats accused the GOP of wanting “destroy” SS. That was no better than Republicans claiming that the healthcare bill would be a government take over of health care. Neither bill objectively does what is claimed. But each side assumes that net result will be what they claim and then assumes the other side must actually know their side is right and therefore the other side must be deliberately trying to achieve the bad result they predict.
Its the same with negative campaigning. Since the other side really are bad people, then negative attacks on them are fair. OTOH, negative attacks on your side are trying to smear good people (which is regarded as justification to be even more negative on the other side).
Thanks Steve. I couldn’t have done a better job myself of illustrating the importance of matters of degree. Another comparison: Colds and cancers are forms of illness eh? But we all know which we’d rather have.
Whether you are catching a cold, have cancer, get punched in the nose or attacked with a baseball bat no reasonable person would argue that any of them are desirable.
As David says though the problem is with saying your party’s excesses as “less bad” than the other party is it’s going to be very subjective and heavily influenced by what party you belong to. Comparing political ads and statements is nowhere near as clear cut as comparing a cold and cancer.
I really don’t see the downside to expecting honesty and civility from your own party. In fact that’s the only way we will ever have honesty and civility.
Republican politicians and pundits are continually and desperately in search of the next opportunity to display faux outrage over something emanating from the Obama campaign.
One important tidbit that has come to light as we observe Mitt’s response to Obama’s counter-punching:
Mitt Romney has a Steuben crystal jaw. Who knew?