I have no idea about what’s going on with Chen Guangcheng, the blind dissident who escaped from house arrest in China, but one thing that’s certain is that we don’t know all the details or the subtleties of his case. Neither does Mitt Romney, but after Chen left the Chinese embassy, Romney called it a “Day of Shame” for the Obama Administration, based on media reports that Chen was pressured to leave by embassy officials.
Now it turns out that Chen is angry at Chinese officials–not Americans–because the Chinese reneged on the deal they made with him.
That’s today’s news. Tomorrow’s may change, but it won’t erase the fact that that Romney’s one-note samba strategy bit him in the ass again. If your only trick is to pick the most negative thing about Obama you can find that day, put some salt and pepper on it, and throw it back into the maw of the media beast, you’re going to fuck up the way Romney did yesterday. And your inexperience and lack of judgment, especially in foreign policy, will be the story, just as it was with the Grenell resignation.
Update: It looks like Chen will be coming to the US. Who’s ashamed now?
dr. bloor
I saw this, and was fairly dumbfounded. I guess the fact that Chen was willing to take the word of people he more than anyone knows to be lying sociopaths speaks to the strength of his desire to stay in the country he loves, but still…
pj
Take baby steps, Mitt. First, stand up against intolerance in your own political party.
mistermix
@dr. bloor: There’s some question/speculation about the security of his wife and family, so that might have figured into his decision.
MattF
Romney gets his foreign policy advice from John Bolton, he gets his legal advice from Robert Bork, he gets his political advice from, um, himself… I see a pattern here.
lamh35
Oh it gets better, RMoney on fix news this morning said We should be proud Chen went to the US Embassy….um ok Mitt thx.
I’m beginning to agree with tweety other than his years as a Mormon missionary in France (kinda cushy if us ask me, my friends son had been in Costa Rica for his mission trip) and his friendship with Netanyahu, RMoney has NO foreign policy interest of his own, it’s all platitudes fed to him by first that gay dude and now Dan Senor(blech)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s that Republican mythos again: All it would have taken was a dose of American Exceptionalism and not only would Chen and his family have been free, but the Chinese would have seen the error of their ways and the Second Amendment would have been make a part of the Chinese Constitution.
Brian R.
@lamh35:
Yeah, that’s an odd one. So, Mittens, you’re saying the Obama administration in general and Secretary Clinton in particular are universally known as beacons of freedom? Fine by me.
cmorenc
I wonder whether enough of the electorate is paying close enough attention this far out for most of Romney’s flailing mis-steps to stick and gain much traction. He clearly seems to think not, because he feels free to freshly reinvent himself and his professed beliefs every week and month, untethered from concern that whatever he did last week or month might come back as contradictory precedent with enough teeth to bite him in the ass.
lamh35
And AP is reporting the Chrn will have a fellowship position with an as yet ID’ed univ. the State Department is working on a visa. So China will allow Chen and his family I presume to get a visa and leave.
So what now RMoney
beltane
@lamh35: Rmoney seems as every bit as ignorant and uninterested in the outside world as Dubya was before him. This means he’s just a puppet with the hands of lunatics up his ass.
Chyron HR
But hey, at least Romney hasn’t said anything about sticking it to “Tojo”.
Yet.
Raven
@lamh35: Fucking asshole will take credit.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cmorenc: I see your concern, except when hasn’t Romney been trying to reinvent himself?
Just Some Fuckhead
We are all Guangchens now.
Cacti
Maybe Mitt can rattle his sabre and make some threatening pronouncements.
I mean, what could wrong other than this guy and his family getting killed?
Punchy
Fixed for…have you seen the national media coverage lately? They want a horse race worse than Bob Baffert.
PaulW
The title “Leader of the Free World” and by extension “Most Powerful Man on the Planet” are political distinctions. The President of the United States is actually limited by what he can do regarding foreign relations: we need allies to stand with us, for one. Going to DefCon 1 over one dissident in a major power like China is not a solution unless you literally want World War V (and that WILL NOT END WELL)… and a sizable majority of Americans are sick of war right now.
All Romney can do is criticize. He can’t offer alternatives other than “let’s bomb em”. But when you criticize without presenting useful suggestions, you become no better than Internet Trolls. You become a naysayer, a nattering nabob of negativity, a noob.
rlrr
Romney’s foreign policy:
War with Iran
A cold war with China
Restarting the Cold War with Russia
All of the above
Cacti
Also too, there’s something about this story that seems a bit off.
I read the rumors that China was threatening to harm his family. Wouldn’t he have thought that that was the first thing they’d do if he sought assylum from the US? Why wouldn’t he have brought them along?
Brian R.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
As E.L. Doctorow recently pointed out, it’s ironic that Republicans talk about American exceptionalism all the time while they do everything in their power to destroy it.
peach flavored shampoo
And if you expect Fox News to mention this, and thus accurately inform about 47% of the population, you’d be right about “biting him on the ass”. But they wont mention it, and there’ll be no ass-biting.
HRA
breaking news from CNN moments ago – Chen will be allowed to come to the US as a student and his immediate family will accompany him.
Stupid [email protected]@ Willard should just shut up.
4tehlulz
The Army loves Romney.
Sadly, it’s the People’s Liberation Army, but I’m sure Mittens will take what he can get.
rlrr
@Cacti:
Getting his family killed would be seen as a plus for Romney.
...now I try to be amused
Trying to win every day’s news cycle is what McCain did in 2008, and we know how well that worked out for him.
...now I try to be amused
@Brian R.:
That’s because Republicans don’t understand what it is that makes America exceptional.
rlrr
@…now I try to be amused:
It’s God, guts, and guns. If icky foreigners and liberals can’t grasp that, fuck ’em.
lamh35
So now who gets the credit for a possible resolution to this, certainly NOT Obama! Maybe HRC, but they can’t stand Hil anymore than they can Obama. My guess some unknown “the state department” will get the credit without naming Hill & without saying the Obama admin state dept…or maybe they’ll congratulate GWB. U never know with this bunch
Jay C
Agree and disagree with this post, mm:
Point of agreement: The Romney campaign’s (not to mention its standardbearer’s) predictable trotting out of the monotonous “Obama has failed” bleat for each and every occasion is really starting to get tedious: I long for the day when some bored reporter is finally going risk their bus-access by asking the Mittster to please explain just exactly what “failures” he is referring to (but I won’t hold my breath).
Point of disagreement: Romney’s “inexperience and lack of judgement” in foreign-policy matters, though blatant and glaring, IMHO, won’t be a big issue in the upcoming campaign for a couple of reasons:
1. The Republicans assume (and tragically, not incorrectly) that a sizeable percentage of the electorate not only won’t see belligerent unilateralism, xenophobia and militarism as drawbacks in the US’s international relations, but as positive virtues.
2. The national media, lazy and biased as it is, is only too prone to flog the stale old “Democrats are weak, Republicans are strong” canards ad nauseam, regardless of reality; and don’t seem to have much incentive to break the habit.
3. The Romney campaign will probably make “foreign policy” issues into “All-Israel All-the-time”, as it’s the only real FP issue they can leverage. And we know how coverage of that issue works….
Steve
There’s sort of this common delusion that anyone can just walk into the U.S. Embassy anywhere out there in the unfree world and receive political asylum. Um, I wish. No, the embassy officials won’t throw you out into the gutter, but let’s think about this for a moment. We had a U.S. Embassy in Moscow for all those decades during the Cold War. Why didn’t thousands of Soviet citizens walk in every day and defect? It’s not that easy because it can’t be.
Cacti
@HRA:
I wonder if part of the deal was…
“Hey guys, before we pull the trigger on this, could you wait for Mitt Romney to say something stupid, so he looks like a total git?”
...now I try to be amused
@lamh35:
Surely there is some Bushie mole in the State Department they can try to credit.
beltane
@rlrr: You forgot one thing:
PROFIT!!!!
Joey Maloney
@dr. bloor:
You could say pretty much the same kind of thing about Republican voters, you know.
Mino
@Cacti: Win.
Jay C
@HRA:
Of course he won’t: he or his drones will probably get up and make huffy speeches lambasting the Obama Admin for “politicizing” the affair, and trying to hog all the publicity for itself….
Steve in DC
It’s that they don’t agree on what makes America special. To Republicans what makes America special is that people can get really rich here and the amount of billionaires that we have. That our dollar is the worlds default currency. That we are still very religious for a western nation. That our military is so powerful. That our stock market generates so much cash. That so many leading multi national firms are American. That we still have fairly tolerant gun rights. That just about anything here can be used to generate a profit.
Those are the things they like about America. The things you find exceptional they don’t really care about at all.
Kirbster
Mittens has taken over Sarah Palin’s job as America’s Official (and Officious) Back Seat Driver™. Duties include constantly carping, criticizing, and complaining about everything the Obama administration does on a day-to-day basis. No knowledge or experience of the complexities of international diplomacy is required. The only qualifications necessary are a big mouth, a big ego, and a big microphone.
jibeaux
@Cacti: Normally I would consider this unlikely, but Obama seems to have Rope-a-Dope-Romney down to a science.
Raven
@lamh35: You in the Easy?
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
fix’d.
MattF
@Cacti: Let’s see.. on the one hand, Obama and Clinton find a way of solving a problem, on the other hand, Mitt Romney gets de-balled. Should anyone be surprised?
Steve in DC
You don’t really have to rope a dope someone who seems dead set on jumping on land mines on their own. Romney is one of the worst politicians we’ve seen in a long time.
Cacti
@jibeaux:
Me too, but…Team Obama knows that campaigns are a contact sport, there is virtually no way Rombot could ever prove it, and considering his previous belligerent rhetoric toward China, it seems like they’d be only too happy to oblige.
schrodinger's cat
@Steve: Most US Embassies are like virtual fortresses, there are layers of security to get through.
rikyrah
Willard doesn’t know shyt about foreign policy. he’s been running for President for 7 years, and has no vision for it, in the least.
which is why he’s knee deep in advisors that lied us into 2 wars.
jibeaux
@Steve in DC: Well, yes. He is definitely a big player in this little dance. He is a truly bad politician.
I think one of the favorite contrasts for me was that while Obama was giving a speech in Afghanistan, Romney and Giuliani were delivering pizzas to firefighters in NYC. But they didn’t even bother to deliver them all the way in to the firefighters. They took them past the threshold and the press cameras, then handed them to an aide and turned around and left. But there were, of course, cameras in such a position to capture that. I mean, isn’t “spend the extra seven minutes to make your feel-good photo-op pizza delivery at least have some relationship to “feel good”, “photo op”, and “actual pizza delivery” taught in whatever class comes BEFORE Politics 101?
Cacti
@rikyrah:
Mittens wants to be a war President. Doesn’t matter where. Anything to hide the shame of riding a bicycle around Paris during Vietnam.
...now I try to be amused
@Steve in DC:
I think E.L. Doctorow’s point is that Republicans are trying to destroy the things that made all those other things possible. In other words, they’re killing the golden goose without realizing it. It took a lot of liberalism to make their conservative paradise.
schrodinger's cat
Meanwhile NYT has the elbenty billionth iteration of Obama has a problem with working class white voters, on the front page this morning.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
They’re the only ones that count, dontcha know?
...now I try to be amused
@jibeaux:
That reminds me of something from the 2008 campaign. On the same day Obama was in Germany giving a speech, McCain appeared at a German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Even I cringed at the contrast. Obama looked and acted presidential long before he was elected, and now that he actually is President, I think Romney will have a harder time than McCain.
Suffern ACE
@lamh35: Well, we didn’t help him blast his way to freedom in a hail of bullets through the streets of Beijing. What good is a fellowship if you aren’t allowed to project power in the most violent way possible?
chopper
@HRA:
jesus, mittens is in way over his head, isn’t he?
chopper
@MattF:
posterized again, mitt.
lamh35
@Raven: Nope. Stayed home in DFW and had 5 free uninterrupted days of no work!!!. Will be heading back to work tomorrow though for at least 2 straight weeks of work (including weekends)
chopper
@Steve in DC:
sometimes the dopes rope themselves.
Steve in DC
@jibeaux
I forget who it was, and I’m really tempted to say it was Mittens, but some politico went to NYC to eat pizza and get his common man on. Then went on to pull part of the cheese off of it and eat it with a fork and a knife.
And google-fu says that was Palin, LOL.
ohsuzanna
Well, it turns out now that a US University has offered Chen a Fellowship and it is likely that China will allow him to go to the US soon.
I think we can all expect Mitt to say take credit for the Fellowship idea…..what a putz.
catclub
@rikyrah: This.
Both foreign and domestic policies that Romney is pushing are nothing more than GWB 2001-2009 re-treads, and he still _sounds_ to the non-alert listener like a president.
To the extent that he can push the policies of GWB and be successful, the US is in deep trouble.
SatanicPanic
In other news, Digby was hand-wringing about Republicans trying to swiftboat Obama on the OBL killing. It’s a shame, I used to like reading here, but Obama’s election drove that woman off the deep end.
jibeaux
@schrodinger’s cat: Projection, I think, on the part of the NEW YORK TIMES.
SatanicPanic
@Kirbster: America’s Backseat Driver- I love this, I’m going to steal it
Hal
@…now I try to be amused:
Oh wow, I had completely forgotten about that. It was amazingly perplexing why the McCain camp thought that would be some type of contrast with the Berlin trip.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Cacti:
__
Followed by:
__
[looks at watch]..which should take about an hour, maybe 2 on a slow day. Hey, you guys wanna go grab some lunch while we wait?
Villago Delenda Est
In the fantasically unlikely event that the Rmoneytron does “know all the details or the subtleties of his case”, the only answer it can give would be “can we outsource this to India and kill a few thousand jobs of moochers in the US?”
Napoleon
@Steve in DC:
Wasn’t that Trump and didn’t Jon Stewart go off on it?
Chris
CNN interviewed the guy: transcript’s here (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/02/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-transcript/index.html?hpt=wo_c2). Take it for what it’s worth and with all the necessary grains of salt, but I thought I’d post it anyway.
kerFuFFler
@…now I try to be amused:
Perfectly put!
Randy P
@Steve in DC:
IIRC, Kerry got blasted for ordering swiss on his cheesesteak here in Philly. I’ve done that too. The guy at the grill looked at me funny and informed me that Is Not Done, but he made it for me.
Acceptable cheeses are cheese wiz and provolone, if anyone wants to know. But don’t pronounce the E at the end of provolone. Apparently Italian words around here are spoken with what Italians tell me is a Neapolitan accent.
gbear
@Cacti:
And just before Mitt made the ‘shameful incident’ statement, he turned to his advisers and said “Hey guys, watch this!”
Chris
@Jay C:
I agree.
The default setting of the U.S. voting public with regards to foreign affairs is “I don’t give a fuck.” The only exceptions to that rule happen when there’s a big scary bogeyman that needs to be fought by any means necessary (after Pearl Harbor, the Red Scare and 9/11), in which case they usually follow whoever flag-waves and chest-thumps the loudest, regardless of how they’re doing.
Foreign policy has never been an area that liberals can get a lot of votes out of, except by being better Captain Americas than them (e.g. winning World War Two and killing Bin Laden).
Clime Acts
Because BJ commenters and FPs in general insist on knowing all the details and subtleties before pontificating about any ongoing situations or legal cases.
pseudonymous in nc
Rmoney is showing how he isn’t ready for prime time. Perhaps it’s because you don’t get to fire people and gloat over it in foreign affairs.
This piece at Swampland shows the way that things were worked in the background, using trusted and experienced intermediaries, with the intention being to avoid exposing Chen’s family to reprisals.
Steve in DC
@Napoleon
Yeah looking into it that was Trump and Palin. You’d have thought Trump, being from NY, knew better.
@Randy P
I think I remember that. These things stick out in election years though. Kerry also had the incident where Teresa went ballistic at a Wendy’s when she didn’t know what chili was and yelled at people. Also hilarious.
We’ve had a couple local Obama fiascos with him screwing up orders at famous places as well, it’s largely laughed off though (since nobody gives a fuck about our local foods here).
Frankly I don’t care that much about politicians ordering the wrong thing, it’s not a big deal. What makes it hilarious is that they always go to these places to show they are still a common man and not some rich asshole…. and then promptly screw everything off and come off looking stupid.
You’d think their staff would warn them before hand and fix it. If you’re going to go to Wendy’s to show you’re not some fancy food eating jackass, don’t ask people what chili is and then yell at the staff.
Chris
@Steve in DC:
I love that they really and honestly think all those things make America “exceptional.” We’re not exactly the first country to be “founded on Christian values,” the world’s had more of those than it knows what to do with. Lots and lots of guns? Every third world Anarchistan has us beat on that count. We allow rich people to be rich? Oh my, how exceptional.
Heck, if American Exceptionalism was really founded on what they thought it was, the most American place in the world would be Somalia. Rampant gun ownership and religious fundamentalism, every problem solved by Stand Your Ground principles on steroids, and government thoroughly drowned in the bathtub with all the power residing in local and family loyalties. Yep… sounds just like what the Founding Fathers had in mind to me.
Steve in DC
@Chris
What’s the saying
“conservatism cannot fail, conservatism can only be failed”
Origuy
Who says Romney doesn’t have foreign policy experience? He knows enough to sell surveillance equipment to China
OK, it’s a blind trust. Still.
chopper
@Clime Acts:
indeed, it’s certainly possible that guangcheng took the gun from the guy and then became armed.
Catsy
@PaulW:
I’ve heard that a lot of people consider the Cold War to effectively have been WWIII, but if we’re staring down the barrel of V, then what was WWIV? Aside from some damn fine BBS software.
eemom
Here’s the two links I posted last night again in the unlikely event that anyone actually does want to learn something about the Chen situation from people who actually know shit about China.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/05/03/china-syndrome/
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/03/debacle-beijing/
Catsy
@Steve in DC:
Well to be fair, if you knew how Wendy’s made their chili you might yell too.
@Chris:
So stealing this.
Another Bob
The fact that Romney and the Republicans are still even in the running in the next election, despite what they’ve done to the country over the past 10 years and more, seems to indicate that for potential Republican voters, it wouldn’t matter what Romney says or does one way or the other.
Democrats will always have to answer for things they never even did, like Al Gore saying that he invented the internet or Obama making up imaginary girlfriends in his memoir. But there’s never any accountability for Republicans. If worst comes to worst, they just pretend it never happened, kind of like how they now refuse to acknowledge the entire Bush presidency.
eemom
And I will add that I will be very, VERY glad if this does turn out to have a happy ending, for the sake of Chen and his family, but also because it was driving me absolutely batshit insane last night that Mittfuck and other republicans who couldn’t give two shits about human rights ANWHERE, including HERE, much less in China, were exploiting this tragedy for political gain.
And that Mittfuck, whose ham-handed incompetence at human interaction of ANY kind, including at the three-year-old level, causes him to trip over his three left feet every time he opens his fucking mouth, would dare to suggest that HIS management of a situation like this would end in anything other than complete disaster.
GOD I hate that smug rich piece of shit.
Yes, I do believe I hate him worse than I hated John McCain — and it’s only May, fer fuxsake. I am never going to survive this ordeal.
Smiling Mortician
@Catsy:
GWOT?
danielx
Kind of like when the wingnut flying monkey brigade would frantically start a shit-flinging frenzy at any criticism of the Cheney administration. It didn’t convey any information, but it occasionally made some interesting patterns on the walls.
Jennifer
Uh….that would be, no one.
Wingers have no shame.
Tony J
@jibeaux:
Or Romney is following the strategy followed by Rocky Balboa for his rematch with Clubber Lang.
1 – Totally change your style, shed any unwanted weight that might slow you down, and (optional extra) run down a beach with Carl Weathers.
2 – Let the angry black man wear himself out punching your toned body very, very hard while you taunt him about his general weakness.
3 – Get angry!
What could possibly go wrong?
chopper
@pseudonymous in nc:
that’s cause he isn’t running for president of the US, he’s apparently running for president of the Peanut Gallery.
Steve in DC
What’s worse for Romney is it looks like there might be a fight at his convention. Paul has been silently gaming the party rules and stealing delegates left and right.
...now I try to be amused
Between the Paulista insurgents and the Tea Party insurgents, how many Republicans are left who aren’t insurgents?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Steve in DC:
__
The FSM doesn’t love us that much. Paul is no Clif White, not even close.
John M. Burt
Of course, if Mitt Romney were capable of shame, he wouldn’t be running for President.
And he’d have somewhat less money than he now does, several hundred thousand people would still have jobs . . . .
cusorial
Odds on Chen Guangcheng’s student visa being from UC Davis?
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Randy P: “Acceptable cheeses are cheese wiz and provolone, if anyone wants to know. But don’t pronounce the E at the end of provolone. Apparently Italian words around here are spoken with what Italians tell me is a Neapolitan accent.”
Naw. Us Eyetralyans just lop off the last vowels as a matter of course whenever we can get away with it. Why make the effort to pronounce it when everybody knows what you’re talking about? Linguistic Efficiency. Of course, the “a” in “putana” is pronounced anywhere, so what do I know? Putana Diablo!(cf., Prizzi’s Honor) In Siciliano (pron. Sigiliano), of course, it’s Butana Diablo! Italian is a polyglottal exercise anywhere on the boot and beyond. No wonder the country is ungovernable. Here at least, we have Republicans.
NeoOstrakon
The party of immediate vitriolic gratification. Always playin the short game.