In 97 days Americans will go to the polls to elect the 45th President of the
Mitt Romney returned home yesterday after a weeklong trip to Europe (
- It gave Mr.
Romney an opportunity to make his first visit overseas as an official
candidate for President of the
- It provided a framework with which to authenticate his bona fides as the titular leader and chief purveyor of conservative American policy abroad.
- It allowed him time and space to attend the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, while accentuating
his role as the man who, a decade earlier, rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; at the same time, demonstrating his devotion as the husband
of a woman who owned a horse (Rafalca)
competing in the Dressage event.
- It created multiple foreign country fundraising opportunities to buttress his campaign’s July
cash haul.
So far, so good! But then an interesting thing happened. Mr. Romney and his aides appeared to begin channeling Clark Griswold and his family, from Warner Brothers’ European Vacation, and National Lampoon’s “Vacation” film series (starring
In the last several weeks, Team Romney has systematically upped the ante
in terms of increasingly stiffening their resolve and attacking President Obama. During the course of his trip, however, Mr. Romney had to invoke a weeklong hiatus on his attacks because there is
an unwritten rule for candidates not to attack the President while on foreign soil.
As a result, the Romney camp was
forced to devise a temporary strategy and talking points to carry them through
the week.
Viewed through the lens of mainstream (often called lame stream by social conservatives) media,
the Campaign had some difficulty
changing horses in midstream, no offense to Rafalca. The gaffes
started early, and were repeated often.
By some accounts, the gaffes,
misstatements, and miscalculations
started while the traveling party was still stateside.
While hobnobbing at a San Francisco fundraiser the Sunday night before the trip, Mr.
Romney is said to have repeated a conversation from earlier in the day with
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr,
in which he claimed Mr. Carr told him
America
It turns out the problem is,
the story appears to have been a fabrication. Minister
Carr says he did not say what Romney
attributed to him. In fact he indicated
he was praising America
The litany of gaffes, untimely assertions, and otherwise questionable statements attributed to
team Romney is substantial. A list of 10
such statements not purported to be all inclusive, follows:
- The
- He further added, “We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels
that the special relationship is
special," the adviser said of Mr.
Romney, adding: "The White
House didn't fully appreciate the shared history we have".
- Asked about his impression of
- The Prime Minister, David Cameron, replied, "Of course it's easier if you hold an
Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere," an off-hand reference to
- He received a confidential briefing on
- Mr. Romney’s top foreign policy aide, Dan Senor, indicated to reporters
that the candidate was prepared to support a unilateral Israeli military strike on
- Romney spent a considerable amount of time before
his arrival in
- Romney scheduled a meeting with the leaders of
- At his
- “Culture makes all the difference!” Mr. Romney said to an Israeli audience, "And as I
come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments
of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture
and a few other things. As you come
here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the
areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000
per capita, you notice such a
dramatically stark difference in economic
vitality," he said.
There's much with which to quibble in these assertions. First, Mr. Romney's figures are inaccurate. Also, it is curious for him to praise
Moreover, the argument that
the fact that Israel
One Israeli professor even noted that Romney's remark could be seen as playing into anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews
and money. It's true that Israel
When pressed for an explanation, the Romney Campaign said the former governor had been taken out of context (there's a lot of that going around). As campaign aides explained it, after mentioning the per capita GDP of
To put that in perspective, to downplay the ugliness of the underlying argument, the Romney camp wants reporters to know he also believes
Finally, as the 8-day, 3-country trek wound down, and Team Romney was about to leave
Rush Limbaugh, reacting to Gorka’s comments accused the media of driving the story, according to a transcript of the show. He said, “Now the reporters areharassing Romney. They are trying tocreate gaffes. They’re working on behalfof Barack Obama. They are attempting tocarry forth the meme that Romney’s foreign trip is a disaster, that it’s onegaffe after another. They’re trying todo this in the mainstream. And the factof the matter is Romney is having a home run of a trip.”
One other theory being posed is that the traveling media corps, which had followed Romney for 8 days, was frustrated by the lack of access. The Campaign had provided only one opportunity to question the candidate, and he took only three questions. You must admit, as logical as that may sound, it’s not nearly as interesting as a left wing media conspiracy.
Jamelle Bouie noted,
"If Mitt Romney were a Democrat,
his behavior on this foreign trip would all but disqualify him from the Presidency."
In his book, No Apology, Romney wrote of President
Obama, "Never before in American
history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize
for so many American misdeeds, both
real and imagined." In a primary debate he claimed that President Obama "went around the
world and apologized for America
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy popularized the refrain, “There’s no place like home.” You can be sure Team Romney was delighted to return to the U.S.
I’m done; holla back!
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consult the links below:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/0727/Romney-s-disastrous-European-Vacation
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