Trying to Stop Bashing Mitt Romney –

But He Makes It So Difficult

Ganging  up on Mitt Romney becomes somewhat redundant after a while.  Mr. Romney’s craven pursuit of the Presidency does provide multiple targets for ridicule, criticism and derision, but the targets are so plentiful and rich that The Dismal Political Economist  must stop lest he becomes obsessed and forced to sit in the corner until he can behave. Jared Bernstein is suffering from the same problem

             I spend so much time criticizing people like Gov Romney for inaccurate or misleading 
             economic analysis, it may seem churlish to ding him when he gets it right. 

But how can one stop when Mr. Romney persists in giving speeches like he did at The Citadel on foreign policy.  Even the setting is a calculated endeavor, a military academy in South Carolina as the backdrop from which Mr. Romney to proclaim

“God did not create this country to be a nation of followers. America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers.

Which may well comes as a surprise to God given "equality before God" is supposed to be one of the basic principles of existence.  In Mr. Romney's view, some are more equal than others.

Mr. Romney may well have set the North American record for uttering platitudes without any major specifics.  There is this

“This century must be an American century,” . . .

Leaving of course undefined what that means

“We should embrace the challenge, not shrink from it, not crawl into an isolationist shell, not wave the white flag of surrender, nor give in to those who assert that America’s time has passed. That’s utter nonsense. . . .

No Mr. Romney, what is utter nonsense is the cliché laden prose you have uttered.

To avoid this paralyzing seduction of action rather than progress, a president must have a broad vision of the world coupled with clarity of purpose.” .  .  .

Thus setting Mr. Romney apart from the political leaders who want a narrow vision of the world coupled with confusion of purpose, and there must be many of them or Mr. Romney would not have put himself in a separate group.

Mr. Romney did mention specifics, eight of them in fact like having better relations with Britain, putting more ships near the middle east, developing a national cybersecurity strategy, and of course, spending a whole lot more money with no proposals on how to pay for it.

Democrats responded in part by re-showing an ad from the 2008 campaign with John McCain saying

“Mitt Romney may have no experience fighting terror, but he does have some experience with foreign countries — sending our jobs to them.”

A low blow to be sure, but until Mr. Romney gives us something other than meaningless pep talks he doesn’t deserve better.