(photo: DonkeyHotey/flickr)

As an avid observer of national politics I’ll be honest and admit that President Obama’s last debate performance was nothing short of abysmal. What I find particularly frustrating about Barack Obama in general, and in his performance in the last debate in particular, is that he continues to fail to counterpunch with some very basic facts when challenged by his opponents on the right. Here are just a few suggestions that should be taken to heart, if the president wants to win the last two debates.

1) Nature and Size of Deficit Spending: Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the rest of the conservative community need to be called to account for misrepresenting the reason why the deficit is where it is at the present time. Obama’s critics on the right have never been honest when it comes to analyzing the current economic downturn. Rather than addressing the Great Recession for what it is, the worst downturn since the Great Depression, they’ve routinely portrayed it as a garden variety downturn made all the worse by Obama’s policies trying to link those “failed” policies with the growth in the national debt. Obama’s counterpunch here is obvious, during the next debate, and thereafter, he needs to ask Mitt Romney why he doesn’t understand that when the economy falls into a deep recession, government spending goes up as a result of increased outlays for unemployment, food stamps ad infinitum, while tax revenues decline and that those factors have played a large part in the growth of the deficit. Moreover, he could ask Romney what he and the Republican’s would have done differently and to what effect. That’s pretty easy to understand and rather straightforward yet Obama and his surrogates have failed to throw these very obvious and elemental counterpunches much to their own detriment. The second counterargument that Obama needs to make is that this administration, unlike the last, put the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the books so that those costs were reflected in deficit spending more accurately than had previously been the case. That in and of itself would have resulted in a dramatic increase in the deficit regardless of the state of the economy.

2) Medicare: President Obama needs to make it crystal clear that there is a fundamental difference between reduced outlays for Medicare that result from reduced payments to insurance companies and health care providers compared to reduced funding levels for the Medicare program per se that would result from conservative proposals. After establishing this factual difference Obama needs to press Romney on whether or not he understands this fundamental difference and to prove that it isn’t true.

3) Attacking Success: Obama needs to challenge the notion that he’s an enemy of success and that should start with the statement, based on his own life, that he himself is the embodiment of American success. Secondly, he needs to point out that asking the very wealthy to pay a little bit more in taxes isn’t the same thing as attacking success. Obama isn’t attacking the American system of private property and private initiative, he’s merely asking for a readjustment of tax rates that are now skewed to the benefit of a few in what many economists have called the greatest upward realignment of wealth since the 1920s. President Obama should ask Mitt Romney to cite a specific example where Obama conceptually, theoretically or figuratively has come out and denounced the American value of success.

4) Role of Government: President Obama needs to publicly disabuse Mitt Romney of the notion that almost everything that has ever benefited America is a function of private enterprise. Obama needs to give Mitt Romney a history lesson in the role of the federal government in fostering growth in the American economy that began in the early years of the Republic with nationally funded roads, canals and aids to navigation systems and continued through to the development of the Internet as detailed in Free Market Fantasies, referenced below. Obama needs to point out the critical fact that generally government builds infrastructure as individual companies rarely if ever ban together to build highways, bridges, dams and airports, without which there will be little in the way of an environment fostering economic growth. He also needs to point out the percentage of developmental research and development that is funded by government. President Obama needs to point out that Romney’s own proposals related to funding technical and occupational training for today’s unfilled jobs as well as those of tomorrow are unlikely to come about with out government funding and involvement. Lastly, Romney needs to be brought to understand that there isn’t a developed economy in this world that didn’t get to where it is today without significant economic policy input from it’s national government.

5) Foreign Policy: The time for Barack Obama to call out Mitt Romney on his Neoconservative power trip has long since arrived, particularly as it pertains to the Iranian nuclear program. To listen to Romney and Ryan speak of Iranian nukes one would think that the Iranians made their most dramatic advance since Obama took office. This however is factually incorrect. Foreign policy writer David Sanger pointed out that Iran made great strides in developing nuclear capabilities during the eight years of the Bush administration, while American foreign policy was distracted in the quagmire of Iraq. An analysis of the timeline of Iranian nuclear development contained the references below reveals that Iran made great strides in nuclear development from 2002 through early 2009. Barack Obama needs to put Mitt Romney on the spot and ask him how a military solution would effectively cripple Iran’s nuclear program, given that Iran’s military capabilities are considerably more formidable than where those we faced in Iraq or Libya and that much of Iran’s nuclear facilities are either underground or near population centers and that makes such a strike far more complicated.

Obama needs to ask Mitt Romney to square his implied muscular foreign policy rhetoric with the fact that the vast majority of the American people are beyond tired of overseas military involvement and want the money spent on war to be spent here at home. Obama needs to make the point that the foreign policy failures of the Bush administration have real consequences and will affect our foreign policy options for years to come. President Obama needs to distinguish between what military power can and can’t do, a point laid out by the Neoconservative Robert Kagan in an NPR interview: “Well, a lot of what people think is decline is based on a very faulty memory of what things used to be like. People have a sense that America used to call the shots, used to be able to dominate the world, get everyone to do what we wanted them to do. And of course that’s ludicrous. Anyone who remembers even the early Cold War years knows that we couldn’t do anything about the revolution in China. We couldn’t do anything about the Soviets getting a nuclear weapon, etcetera, and etcetera. So we’re making a bad comparison…In terms of military power, even with defense budget cuts that I think are unfortunate, the United States is still by far the most powerful nation in the world. So I think the United States remains tremendously influential.” Kagan, who is himself a Romney advisor, goes on to question the Romney campaigns notion that Obama believes that America is in decline. Look at this interchange between the NPR moderator Steve Inskeep and Kagan:
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Image: Donkey Hotey / Flickr

What became of Mitt Romney the “severe conservative” who so assured the American right earlier this year that he had long since slipped his moorings to a moderate political past in Massachusetts? Surely a “severely conservative” Mitt Romney wasn’t the guy who showed up to debate Barack Obama on the 3rd of October. Apparently this “pivot to the center” was widely observed but not universally accepted:

Jonathan Chait:

Tonight’s debate saw the return of the Mitt Romney who ran for office in Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002. He was obsessive about portraying himself as a moderate, using every possible opening or ambiguity — and, when necessary, making them up — to shove his way to the center. Why he did not attempt to restore this pose earlier, I cannot say. Maybe he can only do it in debates. Or maybe conservatives had to reach a point of absolute desperation over his prospects before they would give him the ideological space. In any case, he dodged almost every point in the right wing canon in a way that seemed to catch Obama off guard.

Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote of the contrast between the rhetoric of the Republican primaries and Romney the debater:

The G.O.P. did its best to appear unattractive. It had trouble talking the language of compassion. It seemed to regard reasonable political compromise as an act of dishonor. It offered little for struggling Americans except that government would leave them alone…on Wednesday night, Romney finally emerged from the fog. He broke with the stereotypes of his party and, at long last, began the process of offering a more authentic version of himself…Far from being an individualistic, social Darwinist, Romney spoke comfortably about compassion and shared destinies…Far from wanting to eviscerate government and railing about government dependency, Romney talked about how to make government programs work better…Far from being an unthinking deregulator, Romney declared, ‘Regulation is essential’ … Most important, Romney did something no other mainstream Republican has had the guts to do. Either out of conviction or political desperation, he broke with Tea Party orthodoxy and began to redefine the Republican identity.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

This move to the center, there’s no complaint from conservatives. Is it that they are so eager to defeat President Obama that they, right now, say, anything that works is okay with them?

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat:

What Romney executed on Wednesday night was not just a simple pivot to the center, as much of the post-debate analysis suggested. Pivot he certainly did — stressing bipartisanship and touting his record as the moderate governor of a liberal state, backing away from the more implausible spending cuts implied by his budget promises, explicitly breaking with the idea that upper-bracket tax cuts can be a self-financing free lunch.

Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin:

Is the ‘new’ Mitt Romney going to be on offer through Election Day, or might he backslide?

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein:

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Did Mitt Romney, in his ill timed and ill conceived commentary on the violence in North Africa, just doom his presidential aspirations the way John McCain did in 2008 when he said that the economy was on sound footing just as Lehman Brothers collapsed? In a twinkling of a political eye Mitt Romney through his remarks on the death of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans has taken his focus off of the one topic where he has an advantage over Barack Obama, the economy, and redirected it to foreign policy, a subject where his campaign performance thus far has been woefully inadequate if not outright abysmal. As a result Romney has introduced the issues of his own lack of foreign policy heft and judgment into the race at what couldn’t be a worse time.

By now it is more than evident that Romney jumped to conclusions, those based on an absence of chronologically verifiable facts, in framing his condemnation of the president for a statement put out by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The subject statement appeared six hours before the first protests and well over twelve hours before the deaths of American diplomatic personnel in Libya. The chronology of those events can be found in “What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya”, referenced below. This raises three fundamental questions. One, was Romney compelled to act in haste in addressing developments in Libya and Egypt as a result of the scathing criticism that he received from the far right and those conservatives who had raised questions about his chances of success only the day before, particularly those who suggested that he hasn’t been forceful enough? Or is it the case that Romney just doesn’t have the requisite background and temperament to adequately deal with fast moving foreign policy issues and as a result is prone to poor decision making when these issues are front and center? Lastly, is Romney too influenced by a claque of Iraq War era Neoconservatives who have him simply parroting those old canards that Obama is an “apologist” for America, a sympathizer who cares more about radical Islam than his own country and someone who doesn’t truly believe in American Exceptionalism?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions then Mitt Romney has proven one thing to the American people and that is that he is a deeply flawed candidate when it comes to foreign policy and crisis management and thus ill suited to be this country’s Commander-in-Chief. It’s more than a bit ironic that after doubling down on his ill conceived comments, Romney has yet to come out and condemn the man who produced the controversial film that mocks the Prophet Mohamed or the incendiary pastor, Terry Jones, whose previous actions in threatening to burn Korans set off a wave of earlier violence across the Muslim world. Political columnist Howard Fineman, appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, summed up Romney’s performance as follows: “He got the facts wrong. And it’s a classic case of jumping out ahead of a fast-moving story, chasing what you think is some kind of immediate political gain. He [Obama] never sympathized or apologized. Mitt Romney is pursuing a political strategy that is so nakedly and obviously political…I don’t see Mitt Romney having studied his career as that much of a foreign policy guy. He never has been. He was plugged into the NeoCon view in about 2007, and that was the beginning of his foreign policy education, and that’s still where he is.” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson appearing on the same program stated that Romney’s actions gave rise to questions about his overall judgment and character.

Another ominous development for Romney’s is the almost total silence on Capitol Hill and among the Republican establishment where almost no one has come to his defense. In fact most of the support Romney has received thus far has come from the very critics who just three days ago where suggesting that his campaign was doomed to failure. In stark contrast to the questionable support Romney is getting from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol, Laura Ingraham et al., is the flak he taking from those on the right who you would expect to be in his corner. Here are several examples. Reliable Republican cheer leader Peggy Noonan: “When you step forward in the midst of a political environment and start giving statements on something dramatic and violent that has happened, you’re always leaving yourself open to accusations that you are trying to exploit things politically.” Mark Salter, a former McCain operative and regular critic of Obama’s foreign policy none the less criticized Romney’s actions: “However, his [Obama's] policies are not responsible for the attacks on our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi or the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In the wake of this violence, the rush by Republicans — including Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and scores of other conservative critics — to condemn him for policies they claim helped precipitate the attacks is as tortured in its reasoning as it is unseemly in its timing…Moreover, the embassy’s statement was released before the attack, and was not, according to administration officials, approved by the State Department. If that’s true, it cannot be fairly attributed to the president…I understand the Romney campaign is under pressure from some Republicans to toughen its attacks on the president…But this is hardly the issue or the moment to demonstrate a greater resolve to take the fight to the president. Four good Americans, brave and true, have just died in service to their country…Nothing said or done by the president or anyone in the U.S. government is responsible for the violence that led to their deaths.” The National Journal’s Ron Fournier: “Romney’s actions are ham-handed and inaccurate.” Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: “If you think the eye-rolling at Romney is just coming from the MSM, call up some Republican foreign policy hands.” Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough: “I’ve been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney’s response was a mistake.” Bush era Ambassador Nicholas Burns: “I was frankly very disappointed and dismayed to see Governor Romney inject politics into this very difficult situation, where our embassies are under attack, where there’s been a big misunderstanding in the Middle East, apparently, about an American film, where we’re trying to preserve the lives of our diplomats — this is no time for politics.” Conservative writer David Frum: “The Romney campaign’s attempt to score political points on the killing of American diplomats was a dismal business in every respect.” And even Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly: “I’m not sure the governor is correct on that. The embassy was trying to head off the violence” with their statement.” The bottom line is this, Mitt Romney has violated a cardinal rule of American politics, one promoted by Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, that politics stops at the shoreline.

As serious a mistake as Romney has made this week it’s hardly an isolated incident. Earlier in the year when the Obama administration was locked in a controversy with the Chinese Government over a dissident who had taken refuge in the American Embassy and who then left it as part of a diplomatic deal, Romney inserted himself into the proceedings, again jumping the gun on events, saying that it “was a day of shame for the Obama administration. Romney was rebuked for his “foolish” remarks by none other than William Kristol of the conservative Weekly Standard. The dissident is now residing in the United States. Romney’s misguided approach to understanding foreign policy was on display again when he stated that Russia is America’s primary foreign policy concern: “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”; a statement that would lead to Colin Powell’s blunt rebuke: “I don’t know who all of his advisers are, but I’ve seen some of the names, and some of them are quite far to the right, and sometimes they, I think, might be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought. For example, when Governor Romney not too long ago said, you know, the Russian Federation is our number-one geostrategic threat. Well, c’mon Mitt, think. It isn’t the case.” Earlier this summer Romney would question to what extent President Obama understood our special relationship with Great Britain only to then embarrass himself by publicly criticizing the London Olympics which, in turn, resulted in his being publicly scolded by the both the British Prime Minister and the Mayor of London. The remainder of Romney’s European tour was marred by misstatements and missteps culminating in a world wind tour of self inflicted political pratfalls.

Romney has been peddling the fantasy that if he were president or if elected that somehow he’d be able to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. At the same time he’s blaming Obama for the nuclear progress that Iran has thus far made. This of course, on its face, is seen to be an act of intellectual dishonesty coming from a candidate who is willingly ignoring the facts. In the words of veteran foreign affairs correspondent David Sanger, “The economic sanctions Mr. Obama has imposed have been far more crippling to the Iranian economy than anything President Bush did between the public revelation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities in 2003 and the end of Mr. Bush’s term in early 2009. Covert action has been stepped up, too. Mr. Bolton has called efforts to negotiate with Iran “delusional,” but other advisers — mostly those who dealt with the issue during the Bush administration — say they are a critical step in holding together the European allies and, if conflict looms, proving to Russia and China that every effort was made to come to a peaceful resolution.” Sanger in his op-ed “Is There a Romney Doctrine?” lays waste to the claim that the president has pursued a policy of appeasement showing how “the arrival of the general election requires Mr. Romney to grapple with the question of how to attack a Democratic president whose affection for unilateral use of force — from drones over Pakistan and Yemen to a far greater role for the Special Operations command — has immunized him a bit from the traditional claim that Democrats can’t stand the sight of hard power.” To this one should add the fact that Obama engineered the removal of Muammar Gaddafi without a single American casualty and that from Osama bin Laden down to rank and file Al Qaeda operatives the Obama Administration’s actions have killed hundreds of America’s enemies. This alone stands in stark contrast to conservative claims that Barack Obama is prone to appeasement. Sanger in the “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power”, published in 2009, detailed how both Iran and North Korea had greatly expanded their nuclear programs as America was distracted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That said it’s somewhat odd that Romney has resurrected the saber rattling of the now discredited NeoCons in calling for a more muscular American military posture overseas and that just when two thirds of Americans feel that the war in Iraq did nothing to make the country safer and at a time when America’s infrastructure is in need of serious investment at home. With regard to relations with Israel Romney’s criticism amounts to nothing more than the same old sound bites on the one hand and a pandering to the Jewish vote on the other. This is hardly the commentary of one experienced in the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict and certainly not one that accounts for the changed political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring.

In his quest for the Oval Office Mitt Romney has attempted to sell himself to the American people as an accomplished businessman who would use the skills acquired in private equity to better run the business of government. Yet to date there has been little in the way of “actionable intelligence” that would lead the American voter to see Mr. Romney’s electioneering as anything other than a plea to take a leap of faith in casting one’s vote for him. This is particularly true with regard to his ability to intelligently address matters of foreign policy as Commander-in-Chief, a role where the president can affect events far more significantly than he can when dealing with economic affairs. For you see America isn’t a corporation where a CEO is beholden only to shareholders. A president has roles and responsibilities to fill that are far beyond the scope of a corporate leader. We’ve elected businessmen to the presidency before, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush and none of them have been considered in the long run to be great presidents. Romney has now come under fire from John McCain for failing to articulate his own detailed foreign policy program. Then again Romney hasn’t detailed anything in the way of a detailed program as to how he would turn the economy around, an area of his supposed expertise, so why would anyone be surprised that he’s not even outlined one for foreign affairs, a subject where he has proven himself to be wholly out of his league? David Ignatius of the Washington Post described Mitt Romney as a man having “no grasp of foreign affairs” whose approach to the subject amounts to a “series of sound bites” all of which portray a candidate who knows little about a subject of the utmost importance. With Mr. Ignatius’ observations in mind I believe we may have reached a tipping point in the 2012 election much the same as we were in September of 2008. The latest polls show Romney falling behind the president in key swing states and events in the Muslim world may still go against Barack Obama. However, the poll results that hit the newswires this morning are based on data that predate Romney’s latest gaffe and as a result Americans may still favor Obama when the see the next round of polling and especially when they consider this latest episode in a recurring series of Romney foreign policy disasters.

Steven J. Gulitti

9/14/12

Sources:

What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html?ref=politics

Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones backs anti-Muhammad movie; http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/guy-koran-burning-pastor-terry-jones-backs-anti-muhammad-movie-article-1.1157522

Hardball with Chris Matthews for Wednesday, September 12th, 2012; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49021234/ns/msnbc-hardball_with_chris_matthews/

Peggy Noonan: “Romney Is Not Doing Himself Any Favors”; http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/peggy-noonan-romneys-not-doing-himself-any-favo

Noonan: Romney not helping himself; http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/09/noonan-romney-not-helping-himself-135300.html

Don’t Politicize Embassy Attacks; http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/09/12/dont_politicize_embassy_attacks_115416.html

Romney and Foreign Policy; http://thepage.time.com/2012/09/12/romney-and-foreign-policy/?xid=newsletter-thepagebymarkhalperin

Even As Experts, GOP Figures Criticize Romney’s Embassy Statement, Right-Wing Pundits Blame “The Media”; http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/13/even-as-experts-gop-figures-criticize-romneys-e/189862

Mitt Romney Response To Libya, Egypt Attacks Called ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘Craven,’ ‘Ham-Handed’; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/mitt-romney-libya-egypt-media-reactions_n_1877266.html

Bloody Bill Kristol Calls Romney’s Attacks Over Chinese Dissident ‘Foolish’; http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bloody-bill-kristol-calls-romneys-attacks-o

Romney: Russia is our number one geopolitical foe; http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/26/romney-russia-is-our-number-one-geopolitical-foe/

Why Colin Powell Bashed Mitt Romney’s Foreign-Policy Advisers; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/why-colin-powell-bashed-mitt-romneys-foreign-policy-advisers/

David Sanger : Is There a Romney Doctrine?; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/sunday-review/is-there-a-romney-doctrine.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

Marist Polling: http://maristpoll.marist.edu/

9/13: Obama Leads Romney by 7 Points in Ohio

9/13: Obama with Advantage Over Romney in Florida

9/13: Obama Up Five Points Over Romney in Virginia

Rasmussen Reports; http://www.rasmussenreports.com/

To hear the pundits and political professionals talk about it, this election is all about turning out a party’s base. That’s because there are few if any undecided voters left and the only undecided voters that count are the ones residing in a handful of swing states. That said the only real purpose of a political party’s platform is to energize and excite the base so that it will turnout en mass to vote, volunteer and hopefully convince others to vote for the party’s candidate. However when you examine much of the Republican Party’s 2012 platform one thing is clear. It may excite the base but it’s not likely to broaden that base in any way that will make a difference this election day or on any election day in the future. If this election really turns out to be a battle of the bases and the Republicans lose then part of that loss may be a direct result of having structured a political platform that alienated more potential voters than it engaged. What’s most interesting is not how much the Republican platform differs from that of today’s Democrats, it’s how drastically it differs from their own of 1980 as detailed in “Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now” cited below. Today’s Republicans are heading back in time not forward and when you read their platform and observe their actions of late and it couldn’t be more obvious, particularly in issues of the culture wars.

Marriage: On the topic of marriage the platform states: “We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” This position on marriage is in direct contrast to today’s social trends. If you analyze polling results over the past decade you see a distinct trend away from the idea that same sex marriages or civil unions should have “no legal recognition”, except among Republicans. However what’s interesting here as that even younger Republicans are breaking ranks with their party on social issues. Referencing a recent article “Young in G.O.P. Erase the Lines on Social Issues”, “In a break from generations past and with an eye toward the future, many of the youngest leaders of the Republican Party are embracing views on some social issues that are at odds with traditional conservative ideology…A poll this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the percentage of Republicans ages 18 through 29 who favor same-sex marriage has grown to 37 percent, up from 28 percent eight years ago.” In fact what was even more striking about the RNC is the point to which gays and lesbians were totally absent from the proceedings as per New York Times columnist Frank Bruni: “It was striking because the Republicans went so emphatically far, in terms of stagecraft and storytelling, to profess inclusiveness, and because we gays have been in the news rather a lot over the last year or so, as the march toward marriage equality picked up considerable velocity. We’re a part of the conversation. And our exile from it in Tampa contradicted the high-minded “we’re one America” sentiments that pretty much every speaker spouted.”

Voting Rights: When considering voter fraud initiatives the 1980 Republican platform seems downright liberal: “Republicans support public policies that will promote electoral participation without compromising ballot-box security. We support the repeal of those restrictive campaign spending limitations that tend to create obstacles to local grass roots participation in federal elections.” Now contrast that to the 2012 platform: “we applaud legislation to require photo identification for voting and to prevent election fraud.” But what about those elderly inner city dwellers that no longer have or may have never had a driver’s license or any other form of photo i.d.? To many observers the current crop of voter photo i.d. initiatives and restrictions on early voting initiatives smack of the poll taxes and literacy tests of yesteryear. More to the point there seems to be little in the way of widespread and substantiated voter fraud. An article appearing in People Politico sums up what’s been revealed in other sources: “Again we find, as has been obvious in many other reports, that voter fraud at the polls is so minute and inconsequential that it should outrage all Americans that our politicians are wasting the valuable time they have to try to tackle an issue that doesn’t even exist…Not only did this article dive deep into the entire issue of voter fraud, it used the raw data collected by News21 and their new database to illustrate just how inconsequential in-person, at the polls, voter fraud is. The number of actual cases is somewhere near the 1000th’s of a percent range. That is .001%.”

Guns: Particular specifics of the language on gun rights are especially backward: “We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the ill considered Clinton era gun ban.” While I fully support Second Amendment rights being a gun owner myself and a military reservist who trains with an assault rifle among other weapons, I can’t for the life of me see why anyone outside of law enforcement or the military needs an assault rifle or a high volume clip. Again polling shows that there is little support in the population for unrestricted gun ownership, the civilian use of assault rifles or high capacity clips. In fact polling shows a double digit decline in the opposition to stricter gun laws.

Health Care: The platform is backward looking on the issue of health care: “It states that a Republican president would use his waiver authority to halt progress in implementing the health care act pushed through by President Obama. It proposes a free-market-based plan that gives consumers more choice.” Americans, like the rest of the modern world have tried and failed to have the private sector be the primary engine in delivering adequate affordable health care. America’s Republicans are essentially the only conservative party in the world that is serious in suggesting that government supervised health care should be dismantled. Even the conservatives in Europe are seeking to balance fiscal reform with an underpinning of their country’s social safety nets. The great irony of this is that now, even Mitt Romney has begun to part company with his own party. On this Sunday’s Meet the Press Romney told David Gregory: “I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”

Abortion: While deriding the role of government in our lives Republicans now propose a constitutional amendment to essentially outlaw all abortions: “we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” The backwardness of conservative thinking on reproductive rights hit a new high in the commentary of Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin whose comments conservative writer Ross Douthat labeled as a blend of “superstition, sexism and stupidity.” While a slight majority of those polled now consider themselves to be pro-life, when the specifics of whether or not abortion should be legal are the issue, consistent majorities say abortion should remain legal to one degree or another. When the specifics of pregnancies due to rape, incest or where a woman’s life or health are endangered the overwhelming majority of poll responders favor abortion. In contrast, the number of respondents who feel that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances” is seen to be consistently in the low double digits. Moreover, the Republican position on abortion is joined conceptually with backward thinking on the use of contraception and sex education as evidenced by the popularity of the idea that young people should practice abstinence until married as a way of warding off unwanted pregnancies. While the 2012 platform encourages adoption, which is part of the solution in minimizing abortions, it is completely silent on a woman’s right to use contraception and family planning services. It is also silent on the value of sex education as a way of mitigating the need for abortion.

Education: “Republicans support consumer choice, including home schooling, local innovations such as single-sex classes, full-day school hours and year-round schools.” Since when, in a democracy, has education, up to the level of grade 12, been anything but a function of government? Yes we’ve always had prep and parochial schools but they have not been the avenues through which the vast majority of Americans have obtained their educations. With regard to home schooling I’ve known people who have pursued that route and when the parents were well educated it’s worked and where they were lacking in a college education themselves one can only wonder what the final outcome could possibly be. Moreover it would seem to me that single sex classes would serve to retard the social development that coeducational schooling naturally provides. Suffice it to say that in an interconnected and technologically advancing world practices like home schooling and same sex classes would only serve to hinder American development rather than advance it. The bottom line is that ideas such as these belong to a day and age that we left behind long ago.

Taxes: For all of the rhetoric embodied in the 2012 Republican Platform, no matter how you spin it it’s nothing but the old wine of “trickle down” economics in a new bottle. One independent analyst after another has come out and said that the math doesn’t add up and there’s no way that tax breaks for the rich can be enacted without the middle class paying more. These are the policies that have already failed once if not twice already so why try them again?

Labor Unions: The Republican platform derides the current administration as being beholden to the era of union confrontation with management which is odd as only 13 percent of the private sector is currently unionized. It bemoans the now faded support of the card check while completely ignoring the established fact that companies, have for decades, engaged in sophisticated anti-union campaigns aimed at denying workers their rights under existing laws to organize and engage in collective bargaining. The platform claims it will “restore the rule of law” to our national labor relations system by “blocking card check” while remaining completely silent as to the need for restoring the rule of law as it pertains to enforcing existing laws on the books to protect workers in their right to organize and bargain collectively. It “demands” an end to Project Labor Agreements, a practice that has proven highly effective in moving the construction industry forward as it claws its way out of the financial bubble that burst during the last Republican administration. The platform promotes a “National Right to Work” environment which will do nothing but guarantee that non-union workers continue to earn significantly less than they would under a union contract. In a very real sense the Republican Party sees the economic disenfranchisement of America’s workers as a key ingredient in reviving America’s economic prosperity. Thus whatever rationale which previously existed for the so called “Reagan Democrats”, workers who could support the G.O.P., it has long since dissipated and the whole notion of such a thing has long since ceased to make any sense. In fact if you spent anytime watching the Tampa RNC you would think that everything good that ever happened in this country was the work of entrepreneurs. Odd but it never seems to dawn on conservatives that all of the great ideas and the financing that flows to entrepreneurs would amount to nothing if workers didn’t get out bed in the morning and go to work to make it all happen. Capitalism isn’t solely about the bosses; it’s about a partnership between capital, labor and public investment, an essential fact of America’s economic history that seems lost on American conservatives today.

This is not to say that the entire Republican platform of 2012 is completely backward looking. There are parts that acknowledge the need for government investment in infrastructure as an important element in ensuring economic growth but you sure don’t hear much about that from those running for office in this election cycle. Moreover, in a party so transfixed with cutting government spending where will the money come from to build this new infrastructure? Neither from the wealthy nor from the military based on the current rhetoric. The platform also addresses energy independence as if that’s something that the current administration has forgotten but yet this document is merely reiterating what the current administration has already put into motion. A recent article entitled “U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence”, along with others cited below, shows how America is in the best position in terms of energy independence than it has been in decades, lying waste to the conservative lie that Barack Obama is not even remotely interested in this country’s energy security. The G.O.P.’s reaffirmation of the need for strong military engagement differs little from that of the present administration in realistic terms and any saber rattling on the part of the Republican Party and the NeoCons needs to be held up to the realities that the American people are tired of overseas military adventures that have yielded little or nothing in the way of enhanced security. In fact today’s version of “The Take Away” on PBS showed that two thirds of the American people felt that the country was no safer as a result of the war in Iraq. That’s sad commentary when assessed against the cost of that war in terms of lives and national treasure. Just imagine what would be if we spent all of the money that went to Iraq on America’s infrastructure, we might no longer even be in recession.

Those who take issue with this article will say that, generally speaking, party platforms aren’t that important. By and large that may be true but as it turns out, this year that’s not the case. Quoting an above referenced article on the 2012 Republican platform, “a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found more people interested in the GOP platform than in the upcoming acceptance speeches by presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. The survey found that 52 percent said they were interested in learning about the Republican platform, compared to 44 percent interested in Romney’s speech and 46 percent interested in Ryan’s.” That said it goes without saying that more people, especially independent voters are more likely to be turned off by what the G.O.P. has on offer than excited by it. The Republican Party lags the Democrats by around 10 points when it comes to favorability. The Republican Party in Congress is one of the least liked organizations in America. Combine that with the fact that Mitt Romney is hardly loved by his own party and a vote for Romney is really a vote against Obama and you have the makings of a major shortcoming for a party and a movement that, given public sentiment and the state of the economy, should be out in front in this election by 5 to 10 points.

In an article I wrote in February of 2009, “The Challenge of a New Morning in America”, I pointed out that the Republican Party was in a state of ideological exhaustion having little or nothing to say that was relevant for the age of globalized economic and political competition other than to watch you’re spending. When you look over the content of the G.O.P’s 2012 political platform it appears that this is still the case and that’s not good news for a party trying to recapture the government or a conservative movement that’s supposed to be ascendant.

Steven J. Gulitti

9/11/12

Sources:
2012 Republican Party Platform; http://www.scribd.com/doc/104221532/2012-Gop-Platform

GOP votes for tough-talking platform: http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/in-focus-election-2012_2012-08-29.html

Platform’s Sharp Turn to Right Has Conservatives Cheering; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/us/politics/republican-platform-takes-turn-to-right.html?emc=eta1

Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/29/us/politics/republican-party-platforms-now-and-then.html?emc=eta1

Ross Douthat: The Democrats’ Abortion Moment; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-democrats-abortion-moment.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Polling Report.com – Same-Sex Marriage, Gay Rights; http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm

Young in G.O.P. Erase the Lines on Social Issues; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/us/politics/young-republicans-erase-lines-on-social-issues.html?emc=eta1

Voter Fraud: More Evidence of No Evidence; http://www.peoplepolitico.com/index.php/2012/08/voter-fraud-more-evidence-of-no-evidence/

Election Fraud in America; http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database/

Frank Bruni – Excluded From Inclusion; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/bruni-excluded-from-inclusion.html?emc=eta1

Polling Report.com – Gun Laws; http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm

Romney, Easing, Says Health Law Isn’t All Bad; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/us/politics/romney-adopts-softer-tone-in-critique-of-obama.html

It Will Be Tricky for Romney to Keep Best of Health Law While Repealing It; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/us/politics/romneys-pledge-shows-repealing-health-law-to-be-complex.html?ref=todayspaper

Polling Report.com – Abortion; http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm

U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/business/energy-environment/inching-toward-energy-independence-in-america.html?emc=eta1

Viewpoint: Gas Prices and the Great GOP Lie

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2109474,00.html?artId=2109474?contType=article?chn=sciHealth

Gulf of Mexico activity continues to escalate; http://www.workboat.com/Blogs/Offshore-Outlook/Gulf-of-Mexico-activity-continues-to-escalate/?utm_source=NewsLinks&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=InformzNews

Massive oil and gas lease shows ‘Gulf is back’; http://www.workboat.com/Online-Features/2012/Massive-oil-and-gas-lease-shows–Gulf-is-back-/?utm_source=NewsLinks&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=InformzNews

The Challenge of a New Morning in America; http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_j_gulitti/2009/02/01/the_challenge_of_a_new_morning_in_america

I just finished watching Paul Ryan’s convention speech and I was dumbstruck by this supposed policy wonk’s complete and obvious ability to craft a speech that was so at variance to the facts and then expect the voters to take him seriously. Let’s take a look at some of what Ryan claimed.

Ryan talks about how Barack Obama has been in office for four years and even though he inherited a jobs crisis and a housing crisis he’s been unable to correct these problems. Ryan accuses President Obama of failing to focus on job creation in particular yet he never stopped to acknowledge the fact that at the depths of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said that the single most important goal of the G.O.P. was “to make Barack Obama a one term president.” Looking back at the past three years I don’t recall any great effort on the part of the Republican Party to create jobs other than to continue to advocate for more tax cuts for the rich, the supposed “job creators”, who being the beneficiaries of the most liberal tax treatment since Ronald Reagan, don’t seem to have created all that many jobs anyway. And who were McConnell’s allies in this endeavor, the House Republicans, Paul Ryan, foremost among them. Thus at a time when the vast majority of Americans were suffering through the Great Recession the leaders of this country’s conservative movement put partisan politics above the common good and now we’re being asked to return these same people to power. What, pray tell, would lead anyone to believe that these same leaders, who put the American people on hold while they pursued partisan politics, will now address the needs of the rank and file American via a renewed attempt at trickle down economics?

With regard to fiscal matters, Ryan lectured the audience on the great damage done to the country by the Obama Administration saying that the president had run up an additional $5 Trillion dollars in debt since taking office. Odd but Ryan failed to address the fact that it was his party under George W. Bush that took us from surplus to deficit by starting two unfunded wars, cutting taxes for those who didn’t need one and the increased costs of Medicare resulting from a new prescription drug plan that was never adequately paid for. The great irony of Ryan’s whole diatribe is that he himself never stood against any of the aforementioned when they were up for a vote during the Bush administration. He railed against the auto bailout yet he voted for it. He spoke of a General Motors factory in Janesville that closed after candidate Obama promised that the plant would remain open and did so by ignoring the fact that that plant closed in December of 2008, before Obama even took office. He derided Obama for his efforts to fight the Great Recession yet Ryan himself voted in favor of the Wall Street TARP bailout and gladly accepted stimulus funds for his home district. He accuses Obama of walking away from the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction commission yet he himself voted against it. Oh and just one more thing, he was for earmarks before it became fashionable to be against them as his track record of procuring federal monies for his home district shows.

Ryan raised the old “Socialist” boogeyman when he spoke about “central planning” but then he went on to say that he and Romney would put the government “back on the side of those who create jobs.” Pardon me but the Republicans have been carrying on for the past four years that the government should get out of the way of the “job creators” and not “pick winners and losers.” And as was to be expected, Ryan again raised the misconception that Barack Obama doesn’t believe that people build their own businesses. Of course Obama never said anything to that effect, what he did say was that private businesses benefit from public spending on infrastructure and education and to that there is no argument as the history of this country shows. Since the birth of the American Republic public spending on infrastructure improvement has gone hand in hand with economic progress. Funny that a guy who’s supposed to be so well grounded in economic theory and history would miss an obvious fact like that one. Ryan reiterated the fable that Obama believes that we can grow the economy via entitlements, again a claim that can’t be substantiated in reality.

In speaking of his running mate’s record of public service Ryan alludes to Mitt Romney’s record as Governor of Massachusetts while ignoring the fact that the state ranked 47th in job creation, that Romney governed as a moderate, that he crafted a healthcare plan that is the template of Obamacare, individual mandate and all, and, he ignored Romney’s flip flop on abortion. Ryan praises Romney’s turnaround of the 2002 Olympics while ignoring the fact that Romney received between $400 to $600 million dollars directly from the federal government and approximately $1.1 billion dollars of indirect funding for transportation infrastructure improvements.

Paul Ryan would end his speech with an appeal to the American people to put partisanship aside and: “Let’s come together for the sake of our country.” Is he really serious in thinking that after his own party said that its goal was “to make Barack Obama a one term president” that his opponents will now, as if by magic, put the vitriol and the divisiveness of the past four years behind them and follow him, a guy who on the occasion of the most important speech in his political life would produce a soliloquy that only a politically ignorant listener could love.

Steven J. Gulitti

8/30/12

One of the Republican Party's many foreign influences (Image: Donkey Hotey / Flickr)

Ever since Sarah Palin ran around proclaiming that Barack Obama is a “Socialist” there has been an unrelenting effort by the right to portray the president as someone beholden to foreign ideas. Whether it flows from the fever swamp of right wing media or from the lips of Mitt Romney and his surrogates there has been a concerted effort to define the president as un-American. Furthermore there has been a noticeable lack of political courage among Republican Party leaders in denouncing these attacks. What’s even more interesting is that when it comes to being out of step with the American people a recent NBC / Wall Street Journal Poll shows that 54% of the respondents see Obama’s views as being in the mainstream vice 51% for Mitt Romney. However it might just be worth looking into just how beholden some of Obama’s critics are to foreign ideas and influences.

Let’s start with Paul Ryan and his conservative fellow travelers. A recent article detailing Ryan’s formative years, “Conservative Star’s Small-Town Roots”, stated of Ryan’s path to individual responsibility and maturity: “It followed him into college, where he immediately took a passionate interest in the canon of conservative economic theorists and writers — Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises — who inspired the up-and-coming generation of libertarian-minded activists and lawmakers.” Odd but with the exception of Milton Friedman there’s not an American among those from whom Ryan draws upon for his fundamental principles. Both Hayek and his mentor von Mises, were born in the late 19th Century and are major contributors to the Austrian school of economic thought. Ludwig von Mises formulated his theories in a world where there were relatively few industrial but many agricultural or undeveloped economies. India was a still a British colony, Brazil largely agricultural and China was still dominated by European spheres of influence. Globalization as we now it today was unheard of and hardly imagined. The ideas and influence of von Mises would significantly affect Friedrich Hayek.

Ayn Rand was born in Czarist Russia in 1905. As Jennifer Burns, a Stanford professor, points out Ryan’s affinity for Rand is somewhat odd as she would have found plenty to critique in Ryan: “Mr. Ryan’s advocacy of steep cuts in government spending would have pleased her, she would have vehemently opposed his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy. She would have denounced Mr. Ryan, as she denounced Ronald Reagan, for trying “to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics”…Mr. Ryan’s rise is a telling index of how far conservatism has evolved from its founding principles. The creators of the movement embraced the free market, but shied from Rand’s promotion of capitalism as a moral system. They emphasized the practical benefits of capitalism, not its ethics. Their fidelity to Christianity grew into a staunch social conservatism that Rand fought against in vain.” As Burns puts it, Ryan and the conservative embrace of Ayn Rand reveals “a window into the ideological fissures at the heart of modern conservatism.” To Burn’s observation one could legitimately add that Ryan’s affinity to foreign ideas, as propounded by Rand and others, may be more than a little out of step with American society today. Moreover, the essential economic question is, are economic theories formulated in an era before globalization still really relevant today?

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Mitt Romney’s supposed essential selling point to the American electorate is that his experience in the private sector uniquely qualify him to replace Barack Obama in the White House next January. Romney and his supporters have repeatedly said that Romney’s business acumen stand in stark contrast to Obama’s lack of experience in anything outside of community organizing or academia. In response to Obama’s attack on Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the Romney’s campaign has zeroed in on the money lost on the green energy firm called Solyndra and other federal investments: “Republicans’ use of Solyndra to counter Democratic claims that Bain Capital was a predatory shop that killed jobs dates back months. But the Bain-Solyndra tussle burst into wide view on Tuesday. Romney’s campaign released a Web video that went after Solyndra and financial woes of other federally backed companies.”

No one would argue that losing $500 plus million at Solyndra is mere chump change or something to be casually dismissed. However, as is often the case, government investment in new technologies is fraught with risk from start and that is to some degree unavoidable. Others would make the argument that the government shouldn’t be involved in investing in industry and commerce or those activities related thereto, but those people are fundamentally making an argument that is ahistorical and contrary to the economic history of the American Republic.

But when it comes to Romney’s business sense, I for one, find it interesting that he seems, conveniently, to have overlooked or is unaware of the fact that $60 Billion in American taxpayer dollars has gone missing as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To wit:”As much as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates. In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars. Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended.”

Okay so the aforementioned begs the question: “If Romney is such a sharp business mind how is it he has focused so precisely on the Solyndra loss while at the same time failing to address or even acknowledge the loss of a far greater sum of taxpayer money that is estimated to be in the billions? I’m a lowly blogger yet I’m aware of this missing sixty billion some odd dollars so how can a guy who’s running for president on the basis of his business experience, fiscal prowess and situational awareness of economic issues failed to have accounted for this much lost taxpayer money? In reviewing the public ledger how could a seasoned business professional, who would have had to take at least a few courses in accounting, fail to account for a mere $60 billion dollars in missing funds? I suspect that politics has something to do with it as the bulk of the missing war funds most likely disappeared under the Republican administration of George Bush, someone who today’s G.O.P. has conveniently sought to air brush off of the political stage. But if Romney is to be the guy who is supposed to bring us all together after the allegedly divisive age of Obama wouldn’t he too want to address these missing billions along with the millions that the Obama administration is charged with squandering? After all wouldn’t that be the hallmark of a competent business professional turned public servant? Like Mitt Romney’s now famously forgetting his stint as a school yard bully it may very well be that he has he suffered another lapse of memory in recalling this story of missing / purloined war funding that broke a mere nine ten months ago.

As a voter who is being asked to assess the qualifications of two men vying for the American presidency and who is being proffered a sales pitch that Mitt Romney’s time in private business is supposed to make him stand up head and shoulders above Barack Obama, I remain thus far unimpressed. Needless to say when it comes to Romney’s qualification to be president I am more than a little skeptical. To date, evaluating Romney’s campaign message as evidenced by what he chooses to focus on in addressing our economic problems amounts to old conservative wine in new bottles that may not address the root causes of the current economic crisis. His unwillingness to grant interviews as to his time and track record at Bain, his unwillingness to appear on political talk shows other than Fox News, his running to resurrect Solyndra while ignoring misused war funding and his recent failure to distance himself from Donald Trump and the long discredited issue of Obama’s birth certificate, all to my mind, reveal a man who is far from being forthcoming about himself. Are we dealing with someone who may not believe all that he’s telling the rest of us and who is just hoping that we’ll pick him as a bland alternative to the sitting president in much the same way that he offered himself as a bland alternative to his more radical opponents in the Republican primaries?

Steven J. Gulitti

6/2/12

Sources:

Bain, Solyndra now center stage in Romney, Obama economic fight; http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/230031-obama-campaign-white-house-counterpunch-on-solyndra-bain-comparison

Military Spending Waste: Up To $60 Billion In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning, Oversight, Fraud; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/military-spending-waste_n_942723.html

US Wasting Billions While Tripling No-Bid Contracts After Decade of Afghan, Iraq Wars; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l35Dscn5OEg

Seems that Mitt Romney may be suddenly suffering from a disturbing bout of selective amnesia, apparently he can’t remember having led an attack on another student at his prep school, one John Lauber, where Romney himself cut off the poor soul’s hair. You see Lauber was a nonconformist who apparently marched to his own drummer and this was something Romney and his crew couldn’t abide. Quoting a recent Washington Post article, “Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents”: “[Matthew] Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors. The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified.”

It goes without saying that the above account hardly paints Mitt Romney in a favorable or noble light and even though the incident took place so many years ago and could legitimately be considered to be out of character behavior, the real issue here isn’t whether or not it happened but Romney’s claim that he couldn’t recall the incident. In the ensuing fallout of this revelation Romney, appearing on Fox News, said “As to pranks that were played back then, I don’t remember them all, but again, high school days, if I did stupid things, why, I’m afraid I’ve got to say sorry for it”

First of all it’s highly unlikely that one could ever forget having engaged in such behavior unless, of course, this behavior was ongoing and common in which case Mitt Romney might forget one among many haircuts administered to offbeat class mates as there would be too many to remember in the first place. Also, the fact that five of those who were involved or witnessed the incident possess specific and vivid recollections to this day of the of the attack on Lauber pretty much renders Mitt Romney’s claim that he can’t remember the incident to be suspect prima facie.

So what we’re left to consider is two very unsettling questions related to Mitt Romney’s character. First, is he so driven by ambition as to totally disregard the truth in an attempt to skirt clear of this issue? What about the presumption of honesty that the voter is to have when assessing the qualifications of a candidate for president? Are we to assume in the final analysis that Mitt Romney is no more honest than the guy running a 3 Card Monty game on the street even though he’s got better credentials and wears well tailored suits? Secondly if Romney really and truly couldn’t recall an event as brazenly bold and dramatic as attacking another student and cutting off his hair, how can we rely on him to remember those important facts about economics, foreign and domestic policy, national security and military matters that are the daily bread of the president of the United States?

I’ll be the first to admit that I was no saint in high school or immediately thereafter and I myself pulled off a few bold and brazen stunts, some of which were truly stupid if not physically reckless, one or two which could have been considered borderline criminal. However, it doesn’t take too much of an effort to summon up memories of each and every one of them. I for the life of me can’t believe that Romney could, as if by magic, fail to remember an incident so searing in its boldness as the attack on John Lauber. Prior to this story the rap on Romney was that he was too rich to relate or too socially inept to come across as the proverbial “guy you’d like to have a beer with.” However this disturbing story from the past doesn’t bode well for Romney and only serves, along with others, to further keep him from getting back to the one topic where can actually take Barack Obama to task and that’s talking about the economy. In a campaign where negative attacks have already begun and will only intensify, Mitt Romney’s prep school past has just yielded up another negative image that belies his squeaky clean persona and will surely be used against him somewhere along the road to the 6th of November.

Steven J. Gulitti

5/11/12

Sources:

Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents; http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

Bullying Story Spurs Apology From Romney; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us/politics/years-later-a-prep-school-bullying-case-snares-romney.html?_r=1&ref=politics

Apology Tour; http://thepage.time.com/2012/05/10/apology-tour/?xid=thepage_newsletter

Over the past few days we’ve witnessed a barrage of criticism aimed at Barack Obama for his comments on, and a televised feature commemorating, the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. Mitt Romney and many of his allies on the right initially tried to downplay, minimize or spin the political significance of bin Laden’s removal or they have tried to frame Obama’s televised piece as a “cheap political ploy”, a mere campaign promotional.

Mitt Romney, while campaigning in New Hampshire and asked about Osama bin Laden’s liquidation replied that he, of course, would have done the very same thing, suggesting that Obama’s decision was a “no brainer” that even Jimmy Carter would understand. Oddly enough, Mitt Romney was actually against such a move before he was for it, sort of a reverse of the flip flopping once ascribed to John Kerry. Back in August of 2007 Mitt Romney was singing an entirely different song: “Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized Democrat Barack Obama on Friday for vowing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan if necessary as the Obama camp issued a strident defense of his plan…I [Romney] do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours… I don’t think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort…” Another one of Romney’s comments of 2007 is also coming back to haunt him, his statement to the Associated Press that with regard to getting bin Laden “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” Romney operative and veteran conservative mouthpiece, Ed Gillespie, appearing on Meet the Press, claimed that Obama’s referring back to the bin Laden killing was somehow “divisive”, something that was driving a wedge further and further through American society. If Gillespie’s words aren’t representative of pure spin then what is, after all when is it inappropriate to acknowledge a military or security victory and how would it be considered divisive unless those doing the complaining had something to feel defensive about? Political commentator David Korn noted that Mitt Romney’s haughty and disdainful comments on Obama’s decision in the bin Laden hit give rise to the question of whether or not Romney himself appreciates and understands the gravity of the situation which Obama confronted in ordering the raid as well as whether or not Romney would be capable of performing as a Commander in Chief. To suggest that Obama’s decision was somehow obvious and apparent raises real questions as to Mitt Romney’s own judgment in dealing with matters of grave national importance regarding homeland security. After all committing special forces to this sort of operation can be a most dangerous endeavor as the experience of President Carter had already proven to be the case.

It’s obvious as to why Romney and his Republican minions are so desperately trying to underplay the importance of Barack Obama’s single greatest national security achievement, prior Republican administrations had almost eight years to achieve the same outcome and failed to do so. George W. Bush, after strutting across the deck of an American aircraft carrier under a banner touting the phrase “Mission Accomplished”, would go on to preside over the greatest foreign policy debacle in American history. That debacle, wherein which Iraq would be torn from end to end in an eruption of violence that would ultimately consume thousands of American lives as well as those of many more Iraqis came as a complete surprise to the Bush Administration who claimed that we would be welcomed as liberators. Its hardly a stretch to say that Bush’s war in Iraq coupled with rising isolationist talk among today’s right has had the effect of completely undermining the traditional Republican claim that they are the party best qualified to insure national defense and homeland security. This is a particularly vexing situation for the G.O.P. as it was on their watch that the country had gone from surplus to deficit, driven in a large part by the Bush Administration’s decision to go to war while at the same time cutting taxes, a first in American history. In today’s geopolitical calculus economic power ranks right along with military might in determining global power and to have severely undermined America’s balance sheet in pursuit of riding the world of Saddam Hussein factors in as much in the final analysis of Bush’s war in Iraq as does any military or political miscalculation. Just imagine how much different things would be here today if we had spent that $1.1 trillion dollars on roads, bridges and infrastructure in America rather than on two allies of questionable military and political value in South Asia.

Perhaps it is the reality that in many instances American conservatives have been consistently wrong in their approach to dealing with the changed world of Islam. They totally misread and misrepresented the connection, to the extent that it ever existed, between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. They totally misread the rise of the post war anti-American insurgency, labeling the insurgents, in Donald Rumsfeld’s words “dead enders”, when they were anything but desperate men who were running out of options. They initially declared that Iraq and Afghanistan would be model democracies in a region dominated by autocrats and that dream has yet to be realized as well. Dick Cheney would go on to warn us that electing Barck Obama would guarantee another terror attack on American soil and that hasn’t happened either. Lastly, the ultra conservatives in America have completely misread the Arab Spring and fallen for the notion that it was a front for al Qaeda’s drive for a new world caliphate which it most certainly is not.

As for whether or not deciding to go in for the kill on Osama bin Laden was a lay up or not, the after action analysis reveals that nothing, from bin Laden’s actual location to a high probability of mission success was anything but guaranteed. Michael E. Leiter, Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center at the time of the raid said on the cable circuit today that there was never any unanimous consensus as to whether or not bin Laden was in Abbottabad when the decision to launch the raid was made, the probability was put at 50-50. Likewise is assessing whether or not to launch the raid, many of Obama’s advisers put the chances for success at 40 percent. Admiral Mike Mullen, the head of the Joint Chiefs at the time, also quoted on the cable shows today, said that the decision to launch the raid to kill bin Laden’s was Obama’s alone thereby laying waste to the idea that Obama was indecisive and prodded into action by his advisors. In fact if you look at Obama’s record there’s no way that his conservative critics can honestly make the case that he’s an appeaser or someone who’s been weak in handling America’s security concerns. Quoting Peter L. Bergen of the New America Foundation: “The president who won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades…Mr. Obama decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership. He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden…Mr. Obama’s readiness to use force — and his military record — have won him little support from the right. Despite countervailing evidence, most conservatives view the president as some kind of peacenik. From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama’s record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is.”

Whether or not Barack Obama should use, or to what degree he could use the bin Laden raid as a backdrop for his reelection campaign is a legitimate question as the same controversy arose when George Bush did the same thing when he used Ground Zero as a backdrop for his 2004 campaign. However, that’s where the debate ends and the commentary on who, how and why said decisions were made and whether or not Barack Obama exhibited any personal courage and sound judgment in making them is now beyond the pale of the debate as the after action analysis shows. When Mitt Romney or his lieutenants use the issue of Obama’s campaign piece as the takeoff point to belittle the president’s accomplishments in the war on terror they have clearly crossed the line of what constitutes intellectual and factual honesty. The inane prattle about Obama’s actions being divisive or demeaning to the significance of the operation are nothing more then the parroting of shopworn talking points being mouthed by people who have nothing of substance to say in the first place and those comments should be identified as such. Barack Obama’s actions in defending America are likewise unequivocal and conservatives, if they want to be taken seriously, would be better served looking elsewhere for their critiques. President Obama built on the accomplishments of the previous administration in the area of counterterrorist operations and scuttled most of that which was ill conceived or ineffective. That’s what’s called effective and efficient leadership and conservatives need to acknowledge that as well. In the long run Mitt Romney has probably done nothing but given the Obama reelection team another sound bite to use against himself, nothing altogether new there as it turns out.

Steven J. Gulitti

5/1/12

Sources:

Romney attacks Obama over Pakistan warning; http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/08/04/idINIndia-28811520070804

Romney’s 2007 Bin Laden Gaffe Comes Back To Haunt Him; http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/romneys-2007-bin-laden-gaffe-comes-back-to-haunt-him.php

President Obama Dings Mitt Romney Over Bin Laden Ad Complaints; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/obama-osama-bin-laden-ad-mitt-romney_n_1465232.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=050112&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Warrior in Chief; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/president-obama-warrior-in-chief.html?_r=1&emc=eta1