Make no mistake about this. Republican Mitt Romney is the least patriotic person who has ever run for president of this country. Think that’s a huge leap? OK, then try either the largest opportunist or most dishonest man to ever run for president. Let’s look at the proof-positive facts that back them up.
Last week, when demonstrations started in Egypt against an anti-Islamist film shot in the U.S., our Egyptian embassy issued a statement to attempt to lower the fever. Romney issued a statement attacking that statement. In other words, he attacked our embassy personnel who were already literally under attack. It gets worse. When he doubled-down on that issue after learning that our Libyan consulate was under fire, he attacked the Obama administration for not releasing information about that attack for 12 hours. During those 12 hours, our government was attempting to discover what had happened to our ambassador and three other staff members. Trying not to make the situation worse, they kept quiet and suffered Romney’s attacks until the facts were known. Romney used the time to attack our government without any knowledge of what was going on — again, attacking our government while it was already under attack. And to make it worse, if possible, all one has to remember is the race between President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan. In the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan stated that the country was under attack and therefore we should all rally around our government. That is presidential. For Romney’s statements, the fairest word would be opportunist.
Then when the shit hits the fan, he and his allies blame the “liberal media.” That charge comes mostly on Fox News: I guess they don’t consider themselves media. Nor does Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Drudge Report, The Wall Street Journal or the thousands of conservative radio talk shows in this nation, which far outnumber “liberal” talk shows.
And while talking about the “Arab Spring,” he often talks about the chaos in North Africa and the Middle East. Does he even know the difference between the two? The point is that developing a democracy takes time. Mr. Romney, let me remind you about America’s democracy and its chaos. Do your own homework; just look up The Whiskey Rebellion.
Finally, his latest brainstorm. He’s decided to write off the “47 percent of the population [that] pays no taxes and are going to vote for President Obama.” So that 47 percent includes veterans of our various wars, the disabled, our seniors and those we assist when they cannot help themselves — something a country should be proud to do. With that simple statement, Romney told America he will not be president for 47 percent of the country. When was the last time you heard a candidate say I’m not the president of (use your own group here), but president of all Americans? Certainly not Romney.
To keep my rule about everything in this column being LGBT-related, add this: Earlier this week, Politico reported that Romney wanted Ken Mehlman to manage his campaign. Mehlman was the closeted former campaign manager for George W. Bush, who used an anti-same-sex-marriage platform to win W another term. Then he came out and now supports marriage equality. So Mr. Etch A Sketch wants a marriage-equality guy to manage his campaign while he is opposed to marriage equality.
Romney will say literally anything to win the White House but, luckily for us, he’s such a robotic actor that, unlike most politicians, most Americans can see right through him. While this all seems good now, the election is still a few weeks away and these guys have barrels of cash. Bill Maher said, “The only way Romney can win the election is to steal it.” My only response to that is voter IDs.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].