Like honest George Romney, Mitt’s gaffe is to say too much
MITT Romney’s campaign for the US Presidency is been damaged by a gaffe. Sure, it was an effort to look honest. But Romney’s criticism of the poor was caught on tape. He said 47% of Americans think of themselves as victims. He said: “[My] job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Mitt Romney’s father was George Romney. He might have been president. But then he gaffed. George Romney, governor of Michigan said the right things that might have united a nation:
“Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination — in housing, public accommodation, education, administration of justice and employment….It was only after I got to Detroit that I got to know Negroes and began to be able to evaluate them, and I began to recognise that some Negroes are better and more capable than lots of whites.”
Back then, such a view set Romney apart from many other leading Republicans.
“Whites and Negroes, in my opinion, have got to learn to know each other.”
In 1964, George Romney said after he’d walked out of the 1964 Republican convention:
“With such extremists rising to official positions of leadership in the Republican party, we cannot recapture the respect of the nation and lead it to its necessary spiritual . . . and political rebirth.”
And then the dream died. He’d visited Vietnam in 1965. But he had grown doubtful of the war. The leading contender for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination blew it when he went on TV in 1967. His interview with journalist Lou Gordon went like this:
Gordon: “Isn’t your position a bit inconsistent with what it was? And what do you propose we do now?”
Romney: “Well, you know, when I came back from Vietnam, I had just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get. When you…”
Gordon: “By the generals?”
Romney: “Not only by the generals but also by the diplomatic corps over there. They do a very thorough job. Since returning from Vietnam, I’ve gone into the history of Vietnam all the way back into World War II and before. And, as a result, I have changed my mind in that particular. I no longer believe that it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop Communist aggression in Southeast Asia . . . and I’ve indicated that it was tragic that we became involved in the conflict.”
Here was Mormon susceptible to brainwashing.
And with that the Presidential bid of the man who stood with Martin Luther King when marched in Detroit, was dead.
Has Mitt Romney’s drive for the White House been killed by a gaffe?Perhaps. It’s never brave to pander to the very rich…
Posted: 23rd, September 2012 | In: Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
