Hat tip commentor GBear for the link to Steve Benen at Maddowblog, where Romney “didn’t forget Poland, but he skipped Afghanistan“:
[My emphasis] As has been amply documented (thank you Mr. TBogg), Romney is very publicly in favor of American military prowess keeping foreigners in line, as long as such prowess doesn’t involve actually serving in the military or paying taxes to support those who do. Despite some long-after-the-fact pieties about how much he regretted not going to Vietnam, Romney’s only foreign service at the time involved living in a chateau in France and failing to make converts to Mormonism. (Setting the template, I suppose, for his future failure to impress snooty foreigners despite his visual prosperity as a proof of the Mormon God’s favor.) During his earlier failed presidential run, Romney explained that his five military-service-eligible sons were better deployed “serving their country” by working as Daddy’s campaign surrogates.… The schedule called for a three-country trip: U.K., Israel, and Poland, in that order. But given that Romney has no foreign policy experience, no background in military affairs, and no real credibility on anything related to national security, I figured he’d have to make an unannounced stop in Afghanistan — or at a minimum, to a U.S. military base somewhere in Europe.
In fact, I assumed Romney would stop in Afghanistan but had to keep the trip under wraps in advance due to security concerns, which would have been entirely understandable.
But he didn’t go. In fact, shortly before he departed, one of Romney’s policy advisors appeared on MSNBC and said “real Americans” don’t want to talk about the war in Afghanistan anyway. It’s the longest war in American history, and three months before Election Day, no one seems to know exactly what Romney’s position is on U.S. policy in Afghanistan…
Putting aside the merit of Romney’s vague ideas about government, does he fully understand the nature of the position he’s seeking?
Does he realize that a president, especially during a time of war, can’t simply choose which areas of interest will be important to him, and leave national security behind altogether?
If Romney takes the oath of office in January, he’ll have tens of thousands of American troops on the ground in Afghanistan, fighting a war that began so long ago, he was still a liberal Republican at the time. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what he intends to do with those troops and/or how long he intends to keep them there?
It seems like Romney’s handlers really didn’t think about his “No Apologies, Just Gaffes and Insults” tour as a matter of foreign policy. Willard went to London to bask in the media-intensive glow of the Olympics, then to Israel and Poland to check off the proper boxes on the “religious believers and working-class ethnic white swing voters” appeasement list. Right now the military in general and the Afghanistan/Iraq fiascos in particular are not in wide rotation on the evening infotainment shows, so Romney and his neocon advisors saw no point in wasting time better devoted to assuring the expat One Percenters that Mitt felt their pain. Everything outside the Privilege Bubble was just Disney World but with more annoying papparazzi. I suppose Romney figures that all those faceless unfortunates in the green uniforms are just more production units in yet another underperforming branch of the Amercia(tm) megaconglomerate, interchangeable meatpuppets to be discarded when he takes over the corner office and breaks up the profit centers for maxium efficiency.
TaMara (BHF)
One of my red state relatives linked to Romney’s FB page. It was a post that said thanks for getting us to 3M likes. Huh, I thought, I wonder how many likes Mr. Obama has? 27.6M
Hee-hee.
fuzz
Romney is partly right in that for most Americans the war(s) don’t really exist and they don’t want to talk about them. The problem is that Romney is running for a job where you have to talk about them. It reminds me of when Herman Cain didn’t know what was going on in Libya; he’s just hoping he can get by talking about the economy and nothing else.
Ben Franklin
Can Rmoney see Afghanistan from the La Jolla house?
Vetted !!!
Linda Featheringill
In theory, perhaps Romney, as Republican nominee, should visit Afghanistan or some similar place. But Good Lord, people, do you really want him over there? Aren’t things bad enough already?
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (BHF): Hee-hee indeed. Well said. This. Word. Ditto.
SiubhanDuinne
@fuzz:
Wasn’t that Libby-Libby-yayaya, or am I getting that wrong?
Martin
Maddow is building a pretty lethal case against Mitt and the tax returns. I didn’t realize he lied about his returns back when he was running for governor.
Yeah, they’re going to keep hitting him on this until he collapses.
Yutsano
@TaMara (BHF): And more than a few of those likes are from folks who don’t necessarily support Willard either. Which is even more delicious.
amk
mitt, the proverbial empty suit full of lies.
PeakVT
@efgoldman: all of which is amazing considering the guy has been running for president for five fucking years by now.
Mr Stagger Lee
I would love these bastards say this at Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington especially on the Ft. Lewis side. Old Mitt might strapped on top of a Stryker and sent to Helmand Province. Romney and his people do have an Alpha powere, total dickishness.
gnomedad
@SiubhanDuinne: Uzbeki-bekistan.
The Dangerman
@Martin:
How does someone running for President for more than a decade not have the squeakiest clean Tax Returns imaginable for at least that time period? Yes, at some point, he might have paid more than he was legally required, but he could called himself “Warren Buffet II” and bask in the limelight over it. Paying more wouldn’t have prevented him from having well more than enough…
Alison
I know it’s a cliche to say this sort of thing, but seriously…
…can you fucking imagine if someone from the Obama campaign said this? OMGZ HE HATES TEH TROOPS AND FREEDOM AND ARGLE BLARGLE.
I just…ugh, fuck this fucking guy and all his fucking guys. GO AWAY.
amk
OT – arpaio, the typical cowardly bully.
gbear
Wow. Run off to the drug store for a minute and come back to a hat tip. Thanks.
That Benen piece is an insight that didn’t seem to occur to anyone else, and the questions Benen poses are pretty brutal. Romney really has no interest in being president other than that he just thinks that he should be president.
the Conster
@amk:
Another representative of the party of personal responsibility.
Dennis SGMM
Romney is simply going to lay off the Taliban.
rikyrah
@gbear:
Been saying this for awhile..
the entire GOP Clown Car had no interest in DOING THE WORK of President.
they just wanted to BE President
and that includes Willard.
Martin
@The Dangerman: I stand by my theory that Mitt thought he’d have to largely self-fund this run for office, not anticipating Citizens United. He got shut out on base money in 2008 and dumped millions of his own money in then, and the benefit of having tens of millions to put in your own campaign carries the cost of having to hide how you made those tens of millions.
It was a strategic calculation, the benefits of which he never realized because the Roberts court handed him something even better.
Another Halocene Human
@amk: Double underscore seems to work as well as anything.
NonyNony
@The Dangerman:
A few theories come to mind. The first, and most likely IMHO, is that Romney thought he did have the squeakiest clean tax returns imaginable. There is nothing at all illegal in his tax returns. Every deduction is completely above board, every i dotted every t crossed. And every deduction taken. Every red cent that he can squeeze out of the tax code has been squeezed out by the best accountant(s) that money can buy. And that’s the problem – it really puts a crimp in the narrative that you need to cut taxes on the JOB KREATORZ when you have Romney out there paying a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his housekeepers pay. It might also start a conversation about how marginal tax rates actually work to explain how he isn’t paying 33% of his income in taxes, and THAT is a conversation that might give Romney negative coattails with the Congress.
So that’s the first theory. The second, and less likely but still possible theory, is that he really did decide that he was going to give his wife a break and not run again because of her health issues. And so he slacked off on the taxes. And then in 2010 he saw that Generic Republican had a great shot at beating Obama in 2012 and he thought “hey, I’m a Generic Republican” and decided to get back into the race. But forgot to keep those two years as squeaky clean as he should have.
I lean towards the first explanation, because Romney really is an out-of-touch tool. And from what I’ve seen of him I’m not sure he has enough respect for his wife for the second explanation to work.
Cacti
It’s not just unique to Willard.
Romney men are Mormons first, Americans second.
Not a single one of them has ever worn the uniform of his country, in war or in peace. All of them, however, have made time to serve as Mormon missionaries.
And of course, great grand-pere Romney fled to Mexico rather than submit to US anti-polygamy laws.
Chris
Actually, my take on it is that he (or his advisers) simply singled out what he figured were the three most reliable American allies/stooges in the region, and went there because he figured it’s where his Republican shit would work best.
shortstop
@Martin: I thoroughly enjoyed watching that. My god, this liar is the lyingest liar who ever lied and lied and lied.
@gbear: Did you get me those ribbed condoms like I asked ? Pay you back.
Citizen_X
@Alison: Well, teh troops don’t matter in Republicanland, I guess. Check out this Wapo quote that AL had in her post below:
I can pretty much guarantee that at least a couple of votes will be cast on the basis of, “Well, at least Romney/Obama will start/won’t start the holy war against Iran.”
Chris
@rikyrah:
It’s an old theme in Republican presidents, where they’re not leaders or managers so much as the hands-off public relations face that leaves most of the actual work to their cabinet: I’ve heard that this described the presidential styles of Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush equally well.
I suppose it’s a holdover from the Gilded Age, when the president’s job (and the entire government’s, really) was simply to rubber stamp whatever was put on their desk by the robber barons and machine bosses who really ran things.
Martin
@shortstop:
Yeah, I was surprised by how cut and dry the evidence is. The Bain connection she was going for is a bit more tenuous based on what she offered – that Mitt kept his ties to Bain through 2002 to remain tied to Mass in order to be eligible to run for governor, while he was living in Utah. Something I hadn’t considered. He really need to be employed in Mass. through 2002, so either he lied to Mass saying he was involved in Bain and therefore still eligible to run for Gov, or he’s lying now saying he wasn’t involved in Bain while they did things he doesn’t want to be responsible for.
gbear
@shortstop: Damn! I knew I forgot something. You’ll have to go the ‘aspirin between the knees’ route. Sorry.
The Dangerman
@Martin:
Much better than my theories, which are (1) he’s just that much of an asshole (since there is a nonzero chance that he gets elected, that’s a little scary) or (2) the fix is in somehow (they are proudly cheating in public with Voter ID; heaven help us for what they are doing in the shadows).
Calouste
@rikyrah:
Republicans run for Head of State, Democrats run for Head of Government. Unfortunately, the US Constitution was written before the separation of those two positions became fashionable.
shortstop
@Martin: Well, she’s not actually the first one to bring that up. Several weeks ago when the “When did he ‘leave’ Bain?” question really took off, a number of media/blogging sources noted that he had testified in the MA courts that he was back and forth on Bain business all the time while working on the games in SLC, and so he’d either lied then or was lying now about the extent of his Bain involvement post-1999. What was new to me tonight was hearing Roosevelt say that Romney was blatantly lying in 2002 about always having filed taxes as a Mass resident, putting out that story even while he was scrambling to amend previous state tax returns to retroactively (that word again…) change his residency from Utah to Mass. Unbelievable.
@gbear: Oh, must I? It makes the handstand thing so difficult.
Steve
As Grover Norquist says, he’s just there to sign the bills the Republican Congress passes. Asking him to actually do something is not part of the plan.
BillinGlendaleCA
Willard didn’t, and won’t, go to Afganistan. The reason is quite simple, his dad went to Vietnam and that was the end of his presidental dreams.
Dennis SGMM
@rikyrah:
The same goes for their Reps and Senators. Now that Grover Norquist has handed them a script the thinking part is over – and FSM knows that’s a relief for Republicans.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
That might be true for “Mormon aristocracy”, but rank and file Mormons serve in all the branches.
My boss on my six month TDY tour in Honduras was a Mormon, for example.
Mark S.
I guess Real Americans don’t serve in the military and don’t have any loved ones who serve in the military. It’s good to see that the definition of Real Americans has shrunk to well-off retired assholes who watch 12 hours of Fox News a day.
Mark S.
And I don’t blame Mitt for not going to Afghanistan. What’s he going to say? “I don’t personally know any soldiers, but I have some very good friends who are defense contractors.”
Dennis SGMM
@Villago Delenda Est:
Same here; one of our guys in a shitty little corner of Vietnam was a Mormon. It isn’t that Mormons don’t serve, it’s that entitled assholes don’t serve.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s not even true for all of the Mormon aristocracy. I think it’s mostly the Romney family who avoids service to country.
The current Mormon prophet, Thomas Monson, enlisted in the Navy in 1945 in lieu of missionary service.
Of the Mormon apostles, the top 2 are pacific theatre WWII vets. Another was an Army surgeon during the Korean War, one served in the Army National Guard in the Korean War era but was never mobilized, and yet another was an Air Force pilot in peace time.
Curiously, of the Mormon apostles who are Vietnam draft-age, no one served. Probably took the “minister of religion” route like Mitt.
mclaren
Of course Romney doesn’t realize this — because it’s simply not true.
In fact, this is exactly what Barack Obama has done: Obama has simply chosen which areas of interest will be important to him, and he has left the running of America’s endless unwinnable foreign wars entirely to the U.S. military, which now effectively controls American foreign policy.
Mnemosyne
@NonyNony:
This is the explanation I’m leaning towards as well. The problem isn’t that there’s something illegal in his tax returns. The problem is that everything in his tax returns is completely legal, and it all led to him paying a ridiculously low tax rate or even getting refunds, which would put the kibosh on the whole “Americans are over-taxed!” meme the Republicans have been selling for the past 30 years.
Ash Can
Wait, what? Are you serious? THANK FUCKING GOD he didn’t go to Afghanistan. That entire area of the world would be a gaping sinkhole right now, with 3/4 of civilization (at least) sliding into it.
Have you lost your fucking mind??
NonyNony
@Mnemosyne:
I really do think it’s the most likely explanation. That Mitt did everything “by the book” and didn’t even realize that he should be doing things differently if he were going to run for President on a campaign of “rich people pay too much in taxes”. And now it’s too late, so he has to keep those tax forms from ever getting released.
It isn’t the only explanation – he might have some really shady stuff on those forms that are legal but not ethical that could get him in trouble with his church. The speculation that maybe he didn’t tithe the right amounts and he’s afraid of being embarrassed in front of his co-religionists might also be true. But I do think that the most likely explanation is that at some point it dawned on him that if his tax forms ever got out, there would be calls possibly from within the Republican base itself to re-enact the French Revolution with Romney playing the role of Louis.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
I wonder if Mitt would be willing to extend his comments on Palestinians being inherently inferior to other situations? Prior to 1994, South Africa had ten poverty-stricken bantustans where blacks lived right next to the First World standard South Africa where whites lived…