Timid Republicans take note: John McCain spent 5 years in a prison camp being beaten and starved. Is that what it takes to show a little backbone and support your nominee when he stands up for what’s right?
Sen. John McCain on Sunday defended Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s criticism of a Cairo embassy statement seeming apologetic for an anti-Islamic film trailer that some say sparked last week’s attacks at overseas U.S. posts, saying the media’s coverage of it was “saddening.”
“If you look at the statement that was given by the American embassy, and later disavowed by the [Obama] administration itself – of course, that was a very weak statement. This is – it was a semi-apology,” the Republican senator from Arizona said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We shouldn’t be apologizing for freedom of speech. We should be saying we demand freedom of speech for these people. That’s one of the fundamentals of democracy. So, the lack of symmetry on the part of the media in this campaign on this issue and on Medicare and others, it’s just saddening to me.”
The narrative being promoted by the media is that this was a Romney gaffe. Nicholas Kristof went so far as to say that “Mitt Romney spent the last week blowing up his foreign policy credentials to be president.” I think it was Romney’s finest hour and while anything said during a campaign will be attacked as politically exploitive, Romney was absolutely correct to 1) Blast the response from the Obama administration which was only a couple of degrees less objectionable than the embassy statement; and 2) Not mention the stupid film that the Islamists claim upset them so, but rather stand up tall for freedom of expression.
This is worth defending, even if Romney made a mistake and assumed the embassy statement was a response to the attacks rather than an apologia delivered 6 hours before the walls were breached. (There was no time stamp on the statement and it didn’t hit the wires until about the time the wall was breached.) Romney issued the correct response. The president did not. That should be the narrative and would be if GOP leaders weren’t frightened of going against the grain and defending their nominee.
“Where’s the rest of the GOP?”
Indeed. Hiding under their desks. They don’t really want to win this election. They’re scared of going down in history as the White Male cabal that deprived America of their first black president/savior. They’d rather lose the election and let Hussein destroy the country.
Oops. Forgot to fill in the boxes. Above is me.
It is time for McCain to go home to AZ and shut up.
I’d love to hear someone tell an MSM reporter, “Well, anyone who says this was a Romney gaffe is obviously on the Obama payroll, in spirit or in fact.”
If Romney only knew a fraction of our frustration with the GOP elite, and moreover, of most of the nation’s disgust with the media, he could be rolling along in this thing gathering steam every day. Instead he’s surrounded by fearful nitwits and struggling to stay even. It’s tragic, really.
All. Relax and chill out.
As strange at is sounds, Romney is not “struggling to stay even.” Most of the battleground states are traditional Repub turf, and O has yet to break 50% in any battleground state poll, even those with a tremendous skew towards D.
Everyone is waiting for O to be crushed, putting the onus on R to do it after nominating Ryan. Why not think about it another way–that O has yet to break 50% in any battleground state, and even in MI he can’t do that. Polls in mid Sept that are within the margin of error are just that–within the margin of error. Not exactly the place to be as an incumbent, and his campaign, which only won in the past due to a severe financial crisis in 2008 and personal attacks in 2006, is doing the only thing they can do–deflect and spin. They don’t know how to do anything else. So where is the “Obama campaign in trouble” talk?
Great piece in the NYT today, discussing Iowa. It is a microcosm of the election in general. Everyone is disgusted with O, especially those who voted for him last time. The one guy is the piece who supported O is only doing it because “he doesn’t want O to fail.” That’s it–no other reason, no other policy decision. If that’s the best O can do, it’s not going to be enough.
We don’t want R to be complacent. Maybe all of this armchair quarterbacking from the same crowd who didn’t like R in the primaries will help. One thing, though, all you Joe Scarbouroughs, there is one thing we all have to do–kick O out of office on his butt. The Repubs could nominate a rotten banana, and you all better get out there and vote.
This is about turning a lightweight far left egomaniac out of office before he can do any real, lasting damage. It isn’t so much about who is running against him.
Hopefully nobody ever, ever forgets that.
Good points and worth keeping in mind. I wonder if Obama thinks it is worth going to war to protect his job? Things are happening pretty fast in the Persian Gulf.
Easy to see that Romney’s statement stung Obama and stung him badly. Otherwise why mass media condemnation of the statement?