Exclusive: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s latest distortion about an attempt by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt to calm Mideast tensions is not only renewing concerns about his honesty but raising new questions about his mental stability, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For all his supposed business competence, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is running a campaign of jaw-dropping incoherence, mixing some of the most dishonest rants from right-wing talk radio with focus-group worries about health care and the economy even if they clash with conservative principles.
You saw this at the Republican National Convention, which was almost fully devoted to gross distortions of President Barack Obama’s positions like the endless repetition of his out-of-context quote, “You didn’t build that” combined with complaints that Obama had not intervened enough in the economy to create more jobs, even in contradiction of the GOP’s supposed love of “free markets.”
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. (Photo credit: mittromney.com)
Now, Romney has pounced on a well-meaning though ultimately unsuccessful effort by the U.S. embassy staff in Cairo to tamp down anger caused by an incendiary anti-Muslim video that appeared designed to elicit the kind of violent rage that is now sweeping the Middle East.
Seemingly without regard for the delicate circumstances, Romney issued a statement that transformed the embassy’s criticism of the video into an expression of sympathy by the Obama administration for the protesters who attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts in Egypt and, fatally, in Libya. However, to make his point stick, Romney had to reverse the actual chronology of events.
Here is how the chronology actually went: Early on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Egypt sought to calm tensions by issuing a statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”
Despite the embassy’s message, hours later, mobs of angry protesters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. In Benghazi, the assault involved weapons which led to the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three of his aides.
Shortly after 10 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi.”
However, Romney saw an opening to hammer home his beloved theme that President Obama “apologizes for America.” Disregarding the actual chronology, i.e. that the message by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo preceded the mob attacks, Romney put out a statement at 10:24 p.m., which declared: “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
Romney’s statement ignored Secretary Clinton’s stern words, which represented the first official response from a senior member of the Obama administration. However, rather than correct his mistake on Wednesday, Romney expanded on his criticism of the embassy officials in Cairo and implicitly defended the offensive video.
Romney said, “the Embassy of the United States issued what appeared to be an apology for American principles. That was a mistake.” The principle that Romney appeared to be defending was the right to grossly ridicule someone else’s religion, while ignoring a competing American principle, tolerance of the religion of others.
On Wednesday afternoon after his own somber and stern response to the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic outposts President Obama said in an interview that “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”
A Troubling Pattern
But Romney’s problem appears to be somewhat different. Both during the Republican primaries and since he nailed down the GOP nomination, he has demonstrated a readiness to say whatever he thinks will help him politically without regard to its truthfulness or its fairness.
While it’s common for politicians of all stripes to stretch the truth now and then, Romney has taken that behavior to a new level. He lies, distorts and misrepresents in a wholesale fashion, not the occasional retail fib that is more typical. Then he refuses to apologize as if accountability is not for him.
Earlier in Campaign 2012, Romney even won some grudging respect for his skill as a liar. On April 16, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote: “Among the attributes I most envy in a public man (or woman) is the ability to lie. If that ability is coupled with no sense of humor, you have the sort of man who can be a successful football coach, a CEO or, when you come right down to it, a presidential candidate. Such a man is Mitt Romney.”
Cohen cited a Republican debate during which former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused Romney’s SuperPAC of running dishonest attack ads. Romney claimed that he hadn’t seen the ads but then described and defended the content of one.
Cohen wrote: “Me, I would have confessed and begged for forgiveness. Not Romney, though, and herein is the reason he will be such a formidable general-election candidate. He concedes nothing. He had seen none of the ads, he said. They were done by others, he added. Of course, they are his supporters, but he had no control over them. All this time he was saying this rubbish, he seemed calm, sincere, matter of fact.
“And then he brought up an ad he said he did see. It was about Gingrich’s heretical support for a climate-change bill. He dropped the name of the extremely evil Nancy Pelosi. He accused Gingrich of criticizing Paul Ryan’s first budget plan, an Ayn Randish document. He added that Gingrich had been in ethics trouble in the House and [Romney] ended with a promise to make sure his ads were as truthful as could be. Pow! Pow! Pow! Gingrich was on the canvas.
“I watched, impressed. I admire a smooth liar, and Romney is among the best. His technique is to explain, that bit about not knowing what was in the ads, and then counterattack. He maintains the bulletproof demeanor of a man who is barely suffering fools, in this case Gingrich. His [Romney’s] message is not so much what he says, but what he is: You cannot touch me. I have the organization and the money. Especially the money. (Even the hair.) You’re a loser.”
Economic Distortions
Other commentators have made the same point about Romney and his readiness to seize on any distortion relating to President Obama if it helps reinforce one of Romney’s campaign themes.
As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted earlier this year, Romney’s whole campaign is based on a cynical belief that Americans suffer from “amnesia” about what caused the nation’s economic mess and that they will simply blame President Obama for not quickly fixing it.
To illustrate the point last April, Romney staged a campaign event in Ohio at a shuttered drywall factory that closed in 2008, when Bush was still president and when the housing market, which had grown into a bubble under Bush’s deregulatory policies, was collapsing.
Krugman wrote: “Mr. Romney constantly talks about job losses under Mr. Obama. Yet all of the net job loss took place in the first few months of 2009, that is, before any of the new administration’s policies had time to take effect. So the Ohio speech was a perfect illustration of the way the Romney campaign is banking on amnesia, on the hope that voters don’t remember that Mr. Obama inherited an economy that was already in free fall.”
Krugman added that the amnesia factor was relevant, too, because Romney is proposing more tax cuts and more banking deregulation, Bush’s disastrous recipe. In other words, Romney’s campaign is based on the fundamental lie that the cure for Bush’s economic collapse is a larger dose of Bush’s economic policies.
Romney’s speech at the shuttered drywall factory in Ohio was a precursor to a similar misrepresentation at the Republican convention when Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s vice presidential running mate, blasted Obama over the fact that a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, which stopped production under President Bush, had not been reopened as if it were suddenly the role of the federal government to make such detailed decisions for corporations.
The convention itself was a remarkable exercise in dishonest propaganda, focusing on two accusations against Obama that lacked any credibility. One was the repeated use of the misplaced antecedent in the “you didn’t build that” quote. Obama’s “that” clearly referred to roads, bridges and other public infrastructure that help business, not to individual businesses, as Romney and the Republicans pretended.
The other was a racially tinged claim that Obama had gutted the work requirement in welfare reform when his administration responded to a bipartisan request from some governors to give them more flexibility to make the work requirement more effective.
Wild Talk
Both lines of attack originated in the world of talk radio and then were adopted by the Romney campaign. But Romney’s dishonest attack lines sometime merge with his own ever-shifting positions on key issues.
For instance, on Sunday, Romney seemed to reverse his oft-stated pledge to repeal all of the Affordable Care Act, known as “Obamacare.” In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Romney said he would keep some of its popular provisions, such as the ban on insurance companies denying coverage for preexisting conditions, though presumably without the individual mandate to buy insurance, which makes the reform economically feasible for insurance companies.
Of all people, Romney surely understands this link between mandates and preexisting conditions since he addressed that issue as governor of Massachusetts in passing “Romneycare,” which became the model for “Obamacare.” However, just as voters were trying to figure out Romney’s new position on health care, he reverted back to his previous promise to repeal “Obamacare” in its entirety.
Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Romney’s flailing efforts to land a knock-out blow on Obama went to new extremes amid unrest in Egypt and Libya over a provocative video produced in California and posted on “YouTube,” presenting the Prophet Muhammad as a buffoonish sex pervert and sadistic mass murderer.
Regarding the Egyptian-Libyan unrest, Romney appears to have jumped out front on his own, sensing that the statement from the Cairo embassy bolstered his dubious claim that Obama “apologizes for America,” a central point in Romney’s neocon-oriented book, No Apology.
But the emerging problem for Romney is that he has now developed a reputation for making any wild allegation that he thinks might rile up his conservative “base” or score some points against President Obama, no matter how reckless the words might be.
Romney’s behavior, particularly since his poll numbers have begun sinking over the past two weeks, is leading to a dangerous new narrative for him, that he is not simply an accomplished liar but that he may be mentally unstable, incapable of differentiating between fact and fiction.
Mitt’s Meltdown
New York Times columnist Gail Collins touched on this emerging theme in her Thursday column, entitled “Mitt’s Major Meltdown,” in which she says Romney “could do anything he wanted during this campaign as long as he sent out signals that once he got in the White House he was not likely to be truly crazy.
“It didn’t seem to be a lot to ask, but when the crisis in the Middle East flared up, Romney turned out to have no restraining inner core. All the uneasy feelings you got when he went to London and dissed the Olympic organizers can now come into full bloom. Feel free to worry about anything. That he’d declare war on Malta. Lock himself in a nuclear missile silo and refuse to come out until there’s a tax cut. Hand the country over to space aliens.
“Here is the Republican candidate for president of the United States on Wednesday, explaining why he broke into a moment of rising international tension and denounced the White House as ‘disgraceful’ for a mild statement made by the American Embassy in Cairo about the importance of respecting other people’s religions:
“‘They clearly, they clearly sent mixed messages to the world. And, and the statement came from the administration, and the embassy is the administration, the statement that came from the administration was a, was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a, a, a severe miscalculation.’”
If running a national campaign with all its challenges and frustrations is a test for how someone might serve in the pressure-cooker job as President of the United States, Mitt Romney may be in the process of demonstrating that he is unfit for the post that he seeks.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
“If running a national campaign – with all its challenges and frustrations – is a test for how someone might serve in the pressure-cooker job as President of the United States, Mitt Romney may be in the process of demonstrating that he is unfit for the post that he seeks.”
Mr. Parry balks his own logic process and produces a three-fold flawed conclusion stated in the form of thoughtful restraint after establishing Mitt Romney is not merely a liar, but is a well-practiced liar so bound to the irrational structure that is the basis of the lies that he is “incoherent”.
The irrational structure that is the basis of Romney’s and his team’s lies is Romney’s very presidency in preproduction; that is what a “national campaign†is; there is no “test†about it; his preproduction presidency will necessarily mutate to the reality of an actual presidency, but the behavior of his presidency has been demonstrated.
“May be,†means possibly.
As evidenced in the piece, here is no possibility one can conclude other than that Romney is steered to say demonstrable untruths as opposed to managing truth, the quality of a leader and a president.
“In the process” says a connected series of happenings is occurring regarding Romney’s lies, which require further happenings to establish the unacceptable quality and depth of his deceptions: whereas it has already been established.
“Demonstrating”, as used in this context says that Romney is revealing that his lying is endemic to his presidential aspiration, which is true, but in the sentence, the word supports the “process†flaw and the inconclusive nature of the overall statement; whereas it has been demonstrated to a conclusive degree.
Can that brand of liar be a president?
We have experienced eight years of one.
And we experienced he was unfit for the office.
Mitt Romney has demonstrated that he too is unfit for the office.
#4 in oecd–bottom 5 in 1980–Reagan + Bush Tax cuts for rich..Outsourciung? What else?
INEQUALITY IS BAD IN AMERICA
Since 1980. Tax Code. Reagan gave top 10% a 60% tax cut.
Bush huge tax cut was 37.6% to top 1% and 48.3% to top 5%.
Bottom 60% got 16.4%
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10% own us——73% net wealth–83% financial wealth–get 50% individual income and 70,000,000 workers get 14% or less.
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America is in big trouble. Off shoring job biggest problem. Entire Industries gone forever. Wall Streeters get richer.
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What industry will save Alamance County. Same in all 100 counties. Loss of mfg jobs.
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No safety nets and what would happen?
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We must go to 1945-1980 Tax. 50% on top incomes and estates. Raise minimum wage.
Demand fair wages and cut huge pay and bonuses for CEOs and staff.. a MUST.
dumb? MITT ROMNEY SANE? OR DUMB?
ON GOOD MORNING AMERICA ON ABC ON 9-14 HE SAID
“ThE AVERAGE MIDDLE CLASS FAMILY HAS AN INCOME OF $250,000â€
Huh! Census Bureau says try $50,000. Crazy stuff.
Actually, according to social stratification experts, the middle class does start at income levels around $250,000.00 (And that’s the rock bottom end.). Most people who think they are in the middle class are actually in the lower class. The plutocracy has done a fine job of keeping Americans ignorant of where they stand from a Sociologist’s point of view. $50,000.00 is just above the poverty level. So, like it or not, Mitt was right! The middle class in today’s America has become almost non-existent.
To F. G. Sanford,
To bad for Romney that most middle-class Americans don’t look at life from a sociologist’s point of view. They LIVE the reality of the paycheck that they bring home to pay the bills and lead the middle America average lifestyle. Mitt Romney was wrong, and come voting time, he’ll know he was.
The “middle class” doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck: that’s the hallmark of working class poor. I hope you’re right about the election: it would indicate that the lower class is finally waking up to the realty that Republicans don’t represent their interests. The majority of Americans that voted for Bush were in favor of his tax-cut proposals. Most of them were too dumb to realize that those tax cuts really didn’t benefit anyone making less than $250,000.00. The lower class working poor were actually penalized because their earning power stayed the same but their buying power deteriorated due to inflation. You more or less made my point regardless of the fact that they have managed to make you think you’re “middle class”. They’re laughing all the way to the bank with your money, your health care, your retirement and your children’s future.
PRO CHRIST VERSUS ANTI CHRIST ELECTION
2009–9000B income paid 11.06% tax rate—borrowed 1400B–are we nuts?
top 50% f 138,000,000 workers got 86.5% of the income–paid 12.5% tax rate(borrowed 1400B)
70,000,000 got 13.5% paid 1.85% tax rate..  no dough no pay
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We continue to be stupid—an anti Christ Mormon proposes Tax Cuts like Bush which cost us debt of 2000B from 2001 to 2010– and –1% got 37.6%–5%got 48.5%—20% got 68.5%—-Bottom 60% got 16.4%.–
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An anti-Christ Moron Mormon proposes:
“My first act wil be to defund Planned Parenthood”—anti Christ act—PP prevents more abortions than any unit–It provides health care services to millions of POOR women..Jesus type organization
:MY first act will be to repeal Obamacare”–many presidents have failed to reform health care runaway costs
enriching the medical profession. Eliminate Medicare there will be fewer doctors remaining only for the Rich.
How can he repeal a law without approval of Congress??
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Anti Christ Mormon in power means enrich the rich ditch the rest outsource our industries as has been done since 1980 Let free market roll and Capital take all the wealth and Labor take the shaft.
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Not a pretty past 30 years nor future 20 years unless we put Democrats in total power to increase the median wage with minimum wages—health care–pensions–fair share of profits by workers. The middle class has retained a fair standard of living via Debt debt not from earnings as in the past.
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In 2012 GET OUT THE VOTE FOR PRO CHRIST POLICIES
It i also wall street ultra rich vs survival of middle class
back to 1945-1980 tax rates 50% + estates and income. It mens up pay fpor 70,000,000 workers=more demand=more jobs-=happier society
There is a serious mental illness epidemic throughout the republican party.
Romney willrepeal Obamacare? Congress says what?
LIARS LIARS
Continental Resources CEO and Romney adviser testified in Congress to preserve the oil industry billions in tax breaks. He said “Continental’s effective tax rate is 38%â€
Continental paid 2.2% tax rate over five years. It has paid as low s 0.1% in the the past 5 years.
Over those 5 years it had pretax profits of $1.872 Billion and paid $40 million in taxes.
The two most profitable oil companies pay less taxes than the average American.
Thinkprogress.org 9-12
How low will they get for the almighty $$$$$$$$?
Romney is a perfect idiot to scare everyone into voting for the more effective evil. Obama is a much better liar, and a much more sophisticated politician. He has effectively neutralized dissent from the so-called progressive community.
Chris Hedges, Prof. Michael Hudson, Glen Ford, Dr. Cornel West, Glenn Greenwald and many many others point out that no matter who “wins” the orchestrated sham election, the same agenda will proceed. The Bush Jr. Neocon agenda has proceeded seamlesslly. The protection and subsidization of the bankster mafia has continued. Trillions more will be stolen from taxpayers and given to the Military Industrial Security Survellance State and the Banksters. Social Security and Medicare will be cut. etc. etc. The Bill of Rights will continue to be shredded…etc. etc. etc.
So, all of those irrationally optimistic folks out there who think that the D faction of the plutocracy will help the 99% need to turn off the TV and do a bit of honest research. Try cracking open Howard Zinn’s classic People’s History of the USA and read the chapter titled “Bipartisan Consensus” for starters.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/19/mormons-have-irrational-beliefs-who-doesnt/
In an artiÂcle for the outÂlet Front Page MagÂaÂzine — MorÂmons Have IrraÂtional Beliefs? Who Doesn’t? — writer DenÂnis Prager gives us a preÂview of the comÂing era of irraÂtionalÂism by way of conÂtexÂtuÂalÂizÂing Romney’s far-right insanÂity within a larger global rejecÂtion of reaÂson. Nazi docÂtrine explicÂitly rejects reaÂson and embraces the irraÂtional, placÂing politÂiÂcal or even sciÂenÂtific pracÂtice on the same level as reliÂgious belief and conÂtinÂuÂally interÂmixÂing all. Prager advoÂcates ‘faith’, politÂiÂcal and reliÂgious, since reaÂson proves so feeÂble and uninspiring.
Prager — “I read and hear these disÂmissals of MorÂmonism with some amuseÂment — because everyÂone who makes these charges holds beliefs and/or pracÂtices that outÂsiders conÂsider just as irrational.â€
The thrust of the artiÂcle is that a reaÂsonÂable path is not to be found and perÂhaps doesn’t exist, so one man’s craziÂness is no worse than any other’s, the imporÂtant test being who wins. This is the core of Nietzsche’s nihilism and SuperÂman philosophy.
At botÂtom the extreme right-wing econÂoÂmists and punÂdits are as weaÂried by disÂcusÂsions of data or docÂuÂmenÂtaÂtion as they are by arguÂments for moralÂity. Power and reaÂson do not mix well.
What none of the polls will be able to show until after the election is that the Fundamentalist/Evangelical base of the Republican Party is not thrilled to have a heretical Mormon and/or Catholic as the President and VP.
And they will NOT turn out to vote for Rmoney and Lyan.
As one (nut-job) Evangelical told me, “Catholics aren’t real Christians.” That was years ago. I suspect he feels even stronger about Mormons.
I believe we are seeing the “Vetting of Mitt” for President of the United States…So far we are seeing a negative rating for the republican ticket…wonderful in their incompetence…scary if allowed to go further.
I don’t think we need to see tax returns…we know what is in them. The republican party is no longer a patriotic and stable entity. They are now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers and company, whose stated goal is to destroy the United States Government…Where are the cops when we need one.
Does anyone think that Romney will back down on his statements or apologize? Nah.
Wasn’t it Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes who said; “That no one has the right to shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre!” … I watched the offending film yesterday (Thursday 13 Sept,) at least two days after it was posted, after the Ambassador smothered to death from smoke inhalation, (Limbaugh, on his daily radio broadcast, had him being sodomized before his death.) I find that offensive.
Who did Limbaugh have sodomized? Ambassador Stevens or Mohammed?
Both would be offensive, however, Limbaugh being sodomized would be appropriate and justifiable.
What would you expect? He’s a Mormon. He thinks like a Mormon, with all their ludicrous irrational reasoning traits. They way they justify their ridiculous dogmas, this wouldn’t sound the least bit irrational to someone like him.
I am absolutely NOT a Romney supporter, however I must take issue with your excoriation of the Morman faith. Morman beliefs and reasoning are no more ludicrous than most other religions, including Christianity. I mean, walking on water, raising the dead, being crucified and then rising to walk the earth for 40 days before ascending into “heaven”? Is any of that more fanciful than someone claiming to find golden tablets in New York in the 1800’s? If you are going to criticize Mittens, at least make a cogent and fact based argument. Disparaging someone’s belief system doesn’t cut it.
Has Wrongme done anything right in this campaign? Is there a single speech where he “nailed it”? I can’t think of any. Pathetic.
The compulsive lying and misrepresentations start to make sense when you realize who his audience/base are: Low-information (i.e. ignorant) voters.
They lack the context to understand the dishonest and amoral statements he makes. To the average ignorant U.S. voter, he sounds perfectly reasonable.
People though Bush was so dumb his campaign was a joke, and we all know how THAT turned out!
It was a joke. Unfortunately, the joke was on us.
To Romney and supporters, all that matters is that they WIN. What will he do about the economy? Who cares, he WON. Will he start a bloody war with Iran? Don’t know as long as he WINS! Will Romney cut food stamps so much that children will starve? Maybe, if he WINS! Will he take SS amd Medicare from seniors? Who knows? We only want to WIN!
These people are dreaming that they will CRUSH and EMBARRASS Obama and democrats, put them in their place, show us how to run the country. They don’t realize that they are only hurting themselves, as for president Obama, im sure that he will be disappointed, but other then that HE WILL BE FINE. He is an intelligent man with a wife he loves and children he adores, he will still be smiling that genuine smile for the rest of his life. It is the middle class and the poor who will be screwed as the GOP marches on with their new motto: Our hate makes us great.
Religionists of the world: grow up, stop taking self-righteous offense from everything. If, as every theist would certainly tell us that their religion is so true, the only true one among many, and it is everything that they have been lead to believe, and it is so eternally true, and irrefutable by man, and their god is almighty and infallible and so brilliant and beyond anything we could ever know or do, then why do they take such offense on a gods behalf? If your god is so almighty, he certainly does not need the likes of all you nincompoops coming to his defense, and certainly he will deal with the heretics and blasphemers. It is written that way in the bibles, is it not? It is not for you stupid men to judge. So, calm down and learn something instead.
I agree; Jesus Christ does not need my protection. On the other hand, people should just grow up and stop insulting other people’s religions. “Free speech” doesn’t cover everything; if this movie (which I confess I have not seen) is what I’ve heard it is, it amounts to yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater.
Mitt Romney is…and I want to make this perfectly clear…he..uh…and America…and when he is in the White House, make no mistake, he’s gonna do what needs doing, and the President, all he can do… is..uh..talk.
Romney is Presidential in every way that the perpetual campaigner isn’t. Nuff said
Please explain.
Republican fools don’t have to explain, because they’re so scrumdidileeumptiously right all the time about everything like why the country’s in the bad shape it’s in. It’s NOT Republicans’ fault, because she says so. Uh, assweed Jill, Bush campaigned constantly except when he was vacationing for a record number of days for any president, a record still easily held.
Am perplexed, fogged-stop-please advise-stop-Love,Palmer
Romney, in addition to being the epitome of greed without conscience, advocates nothing but a return to the Bush era policies that created this country’s economic mess in the first place. His economic policies, combined with his childish world view, makes the prospect of a Romney presidency horrifying.