http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/9alr7pm<\/a>)<\/p>\nTo our mainstream press, GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney is \u201cstruggling\u201d to recover from \u201ca cascade of missteps,\u201d Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post reported on the front page of many an American newspaper last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In the narrative being relentlessly promoted by most of the nation\u2019s mainstream newspapers and TV networks, Republicans have nominated a foot-in-mouth goon whose every statement is either a \u201cgaffe\u201d or a \u201cmisstep,\u201d making them wish they\u2019d turned to a more sober-minded statesman on the order of Dan Quayle, Jerry Lewis of Martin-and-Lewis fame, or maybe Professor Irwin Corey.<\/p>\n
Let us recall a few of this parade of \u201cgaffes\u201d and \u201cmissteps.\u201d On his European swing back around the time the London Olympics were kicking off, Romney — who presumably had some expertise, based on his successful staging of the Salt Lake City games (though he did illegally ban the perfectly legal “open carry” of firearms by Utah permit-holders, there, so as not to disturb foreigners who might otherwise have realized they were visiting a free country) — was asked by English reporters how preparations in London appeared to be going. He pointed out what anyone who\u2019d read a London newspaper had to know — that organizers had come up short of security guards and were having to race out and hire hundreds more, on short notice. This was a concern, Romney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGaffe!\u201d the American press shouted. \u201cHe insulted the British!\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all happy the London games went off without a major hitch, I presume. But imagine if Romney had said \u201cEverything looks fine,\u201d and then there\u2019d been some awful terrorist assault. Wouldn\u2019t this same press corps have immediately thundered: \u201cBut Romney said everything looked good! Couldn\u2019t he even read the newspapers? And this guy thinks he\u2019s ready to be president?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Mr. Romney visited Israel, where he said the capital of the tiny nation is Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
\u201cGaffe!\u201d the American press shouted again. \u201cHe offended the Arabs!\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, Jerusalem has been not only the official but also the de facto capital of Israel for decades. Pretending otherwise is mere political posturing to placate those who wish to see a second Palestinian Arab state (Jordan is the first) formed around the fringes of Israel, presumably including a slice of the ancient city. (Under this policy, the Arabs declare war and attack Israel whenever they want. The Israeli army obligingly kick the Arabs\u2019 butts and seizes lots of Arab territory, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Then American \u201cnegotiators\u201d step in and make them give most of it back in exchange for \u201cpeace.\u201d Wait 10 years and repeat.)<\/p>\n
Furthermore, there\u2019s no evidence Romney\u2019s statement was some off-the-cuff remark, immediately regretted.<\/p>\n
Florida is a swing state in the 2012 election, and there\u2019s a fairly large Jewish voting bloc there. Jewish Americans increasingly are concerned that Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was raised in a Muslim family and whose Indonesian stepfather was Muslim, has been cozying up to the Arabs and leaving Israel to spin in the wind. Thus, Romney\u2019s remark was clearly calculated, in advance, to make inroads among Jewish voters, particularly in toss-up Florida. Where\u2019s the \u201cgaffe\u201d?<\/p>\n
WAS HE WRONG?<\/p>\n
And now comes a video of Gov. Romney — apparently speaking off the record to a group of donors but posted on the Internet by hard-left Mother Jones magazine — explaining his electoral strategy.<\/p>\n
In it, he describes 47 percent of Americans as \u201cpeople who pay no income tax,\u201d who are \u201cdependent upon government,\u201d who regard themselves as \u201cvictims\u201d who are \u201centitled to health care, to food, to housing, you name it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since those 47 percent are determined to vote for Obama. Republicans have no chance of wining their votes, and must adopt a strategy designed to appeal to independents and the undecided, Mr. Romney appears to have been explaining.<\/p>\n
Now, I sincerely wish Mitt Romney — or someone able to advance an even more rousing and spirited defense of free markets, small government, and increased personal liberty, someone more like Ron Paul or Libertarian Gary Johnson — were in the process of sweeping to a 43-state, 65-percent-of-the-popular-vote, Nov. 6 landslide.<\/p>\n
The problem is, the poll-takers tell us anyone predicting such an outcome today would have to be either a comedian or delusional. (Though, for the record, I suspect Mr. Romney will take a few more states than the desperate, in-the-tank-for-Obama media are willing to admit.)<\/p>\n
Do we believe a vast majority of Americans are going to wake up on election day, slap themselves upside the head, and go, \u201cWait a minute, Barack Obama is a millionaire lawyer who in his own book says his mentor as a youth was Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis; his parents both appear to have been communists; his job in Chicago was as a rabble-rousing \u2018community organizer\u2019; he\u2019s closely associated with that Bill Ayers guy who\u2019s never apologized for building bombs to blow up police stations; he took over General Motors, shafted the bond-holders, and turned over ownership to the very unions that drove the company to the brink of bankruptcy — I think this guy might be up to no good!\u201d? Because unless you believe that, Democrats have a lock on some 47 percent of the popular vote, and the race will be decided by how the 5 or 6 percent identified as Independents or \u201cundecided\u201d swing a few battleground states including Florida and Ohio — just as Mitt Romney said.<\/p>\n
And why will those 47 percent of Americans vote for Barack Obama? Because he has nicer shoes? Because they agree with his policy on Azerbaijan?<\/p>\n
Those committed to vote Democratic do so because they believe we need government bureaucrats, lots of them, to intervene and stop greedy employers and dangerous right-wing zealots from making the lives of poor folk a living hell — and\/or because they enjoy (or plan to soon be enjoying) the \u201cbenefits\u201d of government largesse to which every Democrat since FDR has told them they\u2019re \u201centitled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like Mitt Romney said.<\/p>\n
Do 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax? True. Do at least that large a percentage of Americans oppose a substantial reduction in the size of government, on which they have become dependent?<\/p>\n
In fact, the number is much larger. Just poll your neighborhood, asking people if it would be OK with them for government to shut down the public schools, freeing us from the property tax but also requiring parents to pay for their own children\u2019s education. I suspect you\u2019d be lucky to get 6 percent of Americans to agree with such a proposition — though our current model for tax-funded, coercion-based schooling wasn\u2019t imported from Germany until after the Civil War, sometimes at bayonet-point, and has been resulting in dumber and dumber graduates ever since.<\/p>\n
Not only was Mr. Romney\u2019s \u201c47 percent\u201d statement true on its face, it\u2019s so unexceptional that if any on-air commentator had said the same thing — perhaps prettied up with a few euphemisms — we\u2019d all be stifling a yawn: \u201cThis guy just figured that out? Where\u2019s he been?\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet the press wants us to believe Mitt Romney might as well call it quits, because he\u2019s been caught telling the truth once again.<\/p>\n
BUT OBAMA CAN DO NO WRONG<\/p>\n
How far is the press in the tank for Obama? They certainly don\u2019t seem to be worried about how they\u2019re going to sew back together any reputation for even-handedness after Nov. 6.<\/p>\n
Where are the stories pointing out that the Obama camp looks increasingly desperate as the candidate runs around telling American businessmen \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a business — you didn\u2019t build that. Somebody else made that happen,\u201d and \u201cThe private sector is doing fine,\u201d while his vice president treats a predominantly black audience to \u201c(Romney) said … he\u2019s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street. They\u2019re going to put y\u2019all back in chains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaffes? No, no, the press races into a song and dance rivaling the rituals of some Amazon shaman to explain how \u201cright-wing kooks\u201d have merely \u201ctaken these remarks out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n
And how about that moment, back in March, when reporters heard Mr. Obama ask Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to give him some space on missile defense negotiations?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe exchange was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room for remarks by the two leaders,\u201d ABC News reported:<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it\u2019s important for him to give me space.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you. …<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a gaffe. That\u2019s a promise to Vladimir Putin that once he no longer has to worry about American popular opinion, Barack Obama, raised at the knee of Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis, can be counted on to further sell us down the river, unilaterally gutting our missile defense.<\/p>\n
The economy is in shambles. The policy of appeasement of Muslim radicals and the \u201cArab Spring\u201d has the Middle east in flames and an American ambassador dead, reportedly sodomized before he was dragged through the streets of Benghazi where Hillary Clinton had declined to provide him with a Marine bodyguard so as not to \u201coffend\u201d anyone. A missile defense sellout to the Russians awaits only Mr. Obama\u2019s re-election in seven weeks.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s Mitt Romney who\u2019s \u201cstruggling to recover from a cascade of missteps\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not a hop-up-and-down political champion of Mitt Romney. As an individual, Mr. Romney is a talented and decent man. It\u2019s interesting to note the times he\u2019s gotten in the most trouble with our left-leaning press, all they\u2019ve been able to \u201cget him on\u201d is telling the truth in an incautious manner. Oh, the horror! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42,5,22,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election","category-elections","category-media","category-welfare"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-pA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3501,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/3501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}