Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Mitt Romney: The Superficial America

The criticism of Mitt Romney's less than successful trip abroad to dupe voters into thinking the man has a clue when it comes to foreign policy issues continues.  The Washington Post today blasts Romney in its main editorial.  Personally, the only things the trip did is to prove (i) Romney will pander and say whatever non-substantive platitudes he thinks any particular audience wants to hear, and (ii) Romney is an arrogant ass who thinks his money and privileged life exempt him from having to answer questions like any other candidate should.  Worse yet, he has no serious policy proposals beyond sound bites.  It's as if he's a rewarmed version of Chimperator George W. Bush.  Here are highlights from the Post's editorial:  


What has Mr. Romney revealed about his world view? Not nearly enough.  In broad terms, Mr. Romney has sought to distinguish himself from President Obama by suggesting he would be more muscular in projecting U.S. leadership and power, in what he often depicts as a titanic struggle of good vs. evil. But how would Mr. Romney translate his vision into action? So far, his assertions have been superficial, and sometimes maladroit.

On several issues, Mr. Romney sketched out ambitious goals but said nothing about how he would achieve them. In the VFW address, he vowed to avoid deep cuts in the military budget but offered no clue about the trade-offs or difficult decisions required, while blithely skipping over his own party’s role in the nation’s fiscal train wreck. In Jerusalem, he renewed his pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons — “We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option” — but by what means?  

Mr. Romney sounded the klaxon about China’s violations of human rights and other concerns but offered not a single constructive idea for managing the deeply intertwined relationship with Beijing. He was vague on how he would respond to the upheavals of the Arab Spring.

In London, Mr. Romney expressed doubt about Britain’s readiness to host the Olympic Games, a comment that was bush league but not very consequential. More serious was Mr. Romney’s suggestion that “culture” explains the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians, and (for good measure) between Mexico and the United States. His comparison left out restrictions on Palestinian trade, workers and goods imposed by Israel over many years, and, more to the point, he reflected an alarmingly simplistic view of complex questions.

Mr. Romney’s trip ended on an unfortunate note in Warsaw. For days, frustrated journalists have not been permitted to question Mr. Romney. When they shouted questions at a wreath-laying ceremony, a testy spokesman rudely told them to get lost. The spokesman apologized, but the questions were left hanging. With fewer than 100 days until the election, we hope Mr. Romney will come up with serious answers on foreign policy.

2 comments:

Prup (aka Jim Benton) said...

"mooncat" at Left in Alabama makes the interesting, overlooked observation that Romney's 'cultural differences explain poverty' comments do not merely insult Palestinians -- and Chileans, and Mexicans -- or turn a blind eye towards the Israeli actions that have increased the difference in GDP.

They make a more important -- and insulting -- point. In effect they are a version of 'blaming the victim.' If you're poor, it's your [culture's] fault -- which means, I guess, that if you abandon, or 'rise above' your awful upbringing, you can choose to get out of poverty.

Now this is not entirely false -- after all, a person who is raised with the ideas that the Texas Board of Ed wants to make standard, or who goes to school in one of Jindal's voucher recipient 'acadamies' probably is likely to find many higher paying jobs closed to him unless he unlearns what he learns there. (And a culture which encourages tithing leaves all but the churches starting out poorer -- ironically the people who impose a 'religious tax' upon themselves are usually the first to condemn actuyal taxes on anyone else -- usually they probably don't make enough to pay much to the government themselves since tgheir tithe is deductible.)

But there are a lot more important reasons for poverty -- and few of them can be overcome by rejecting one's own culture. (And few 'superior' cultures will accept such a rejection. Whites will argue that a black who has spent his entire life in the same sprt of environments as Romney's closest friends is still a 'victim of black culture' -- to keep them from simply saying 'their race.' And not only are Hispanics not 'allowed' to change their -- supposed -- 'inferior Mexican culture' by moving to our own 'higher culture'; the Hispanics who have been living in the same houses long before the area changed governmental control, whose home was 'immigrated' to America from Mexico a century and a half before -- are still 'illegal immigrants until they prove otherwise' in the eys of the border patrolmen.

But Romney understand this? That takes empathy, sensitivity to others, and other traits he lacks to the same extent he lacks tact and the 'common touch.'

Prup (aka Jim Benton) said...

Of course my comments about 'inferior' and 'superior' cultures are echoes of Romney's words, not my beliefs.