Monday, September 17, 2012

To Be Presidential, Romney Must First Be Truthful


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2012/09/to_be_presidential_romney_must039885.php

Presidential campaigns sometimesturn on big moments that help voters ponder the central questionthey have about every challenger: What would this personactually be like as president?
These aren’t the same as gaffes, which are slips of thetongue that may be politically damaging but say little about thecandidates except that they misspoke.
I’m talking instead about critical moments ofmiscalculation — often made in desperation — that illuminateimportant truths about a politician.
In 1964, Barry Goldwater ardently defended extremism. In1984, Walter Mondale said he would raise taxes. In 2008, John McCain suspended his campaign to work on the economic crisis andthen offered no solutions for it. They all lost.
Now we have Mitt Romney, with astonishingly poor timing,trying to profit politically from tragic events in the MiddleEast. His remarks on Libya and Egypt at a news conference inJacksonville, Florida, might or might not hurt his chances withpivotal independent voters in November. But we do know that hehas managed to be simultaneously unpresidential, untruthful andunwise. 
IMO they let the abyss get to wide to deep to big and to high to switch to as of yet an unknown plan to counter all the elephant dung they've left on the campaign trail and most egregiously on "we the people".  are they still keeping that mindset that the people are deaf and blind, "it's on video tape stupid".
Obvious Posture
The obvious and proper posture for a serious presidential
candidate at that moment of shock and sadness would have been to
show the country he could inhabit the role of mourner-in-chief,
an important part of being president. Vows of justice are also welcome.
 Even if Romney couldn’t compete with President Barack Obama on this terrain, he needed to at least appear to be abovepartisan politics for a day or two.Instead, Romney doubled down on a scorching statement
issued the night before by his campaign that said: “It’s
disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was
not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but tosympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
In Jacksonville, Romney compounded his campaign’s slur with
one of his own. “I also believe the administration was wrong to
stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached
our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions,” hesaid.
and now they think it's time to change the lies and hyperbole to what, "MORE"?