Mitt Romney is a poo-poo head

Are we really gonna bring the debate down to this level this early? Can’t we act like grown-ups at least until the conventions?

Today Mitt Romney said that Barack hasn’t accomplished anything and that the presidency is not an internship. What’s next? Cartoons of Barack in diapers shaking a rattle?

Romney tells us that Barack hasn’t been a leader of enterprise and he hasn’t made a business work, or a city, or a state. I’m not a hundred percent sure on this, but I don’t think McCain’s ever been a mayor or a governor either. I also don’t know if he’s ever been CEO of his own business, but maybe he has. I guess the point is, doesn’t it seem like this criticism is just applicable to him as it is to Obama? McCain and Obama are both senators. McCain’s been a senator longer, sure, but he’s like a thousand years old--of course he has. Is Romney really trying to tell us that only former governors are equipped to handle the presidency? Because, I mean, I know the last few have been governors (or vice presidents, in Bush 41’s case) but it’s not like Obama would be the first senator to try for the office.

Let’s think about that. Who else was just a senator before getting elected president?

I’m actually surprised by how far back you have to go to find one. The last president who wasn’t a governor or a vice president before taking office was John F. Kennedy. Wow. I’d hate to follow in that guy’s footsteps. Who else had only served in one of the houses of Congress before running? Just a couple, actually. Notably among them, perhaps you’ll remember, Mitt, was Abraham Lincoln. He served two years in the House of Representatives. That's it.

Well. I’m sold. Let’s take Romney’s advice that would have cheated us out of Kennedy and Lincoln. Sounds like a solid plan.

He also defended John McCain’s ridiculous comments about Hamas saying that the US leader of that group has endorsed Obama and citing as the reason for that endorsement the fact that Obama has said that he’ll talk to Ahmadinejad in his first year. Wow. The sheer number of ways that that statement is stupid gives me goosebumps.

First and foremost, here we are again playing the old game of equating the candidate with some nutbag who’s endorsed him. I don’t know if it’s true about this US leader of Hamas (whoever the hell that even is) but let’s take it as true. Obama has no control over who endorses him. Or speaks out on his behalf. Or votes for him. If you want to start playing that game, let’s talk about the tens of thousands of Klansmen, skinheads, cultists, fanatics and bigots who consistently vote Republican. Let’s talk about the gun-toting nuts who say income tax is unconstitutional. Let’s talk about the guys who think the South’ll rise again and that the second amendment is necessary so that the people can defend themselves against the government. Let’s talk about all the hate-mongers and bigots and extremists and terrorists who’ve taken up the conservative banner since 1865. Let’s talk about Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter and Bill O’Reilly. And, of course, let’s talk about George Bush. Cause if they support you, you must be just like them, right?

More interesting, though, than the fact that the Republicans are already pulling out these guilt-by-imaginary-association arguments, is the reason Romney said this Hamas guy is supporting Obama. He’s agreed to talk to Ahmadinejad. Great attack point, guys. Barack, alone in the field, is saying that it’s time to at least make an attempt at bringing our enemies back to the table so that we can at least attempt to solve some of our differences with diplomacy instead of obliteration and he’s the bad guy? I thought McCain was trying to spin us an I’m-different-from-George-Bush yarn. Has he already given up on that? Is he already embracing the speak-aggressively-and-smack-them-with-a-big-stick school of foreign policy? Tell us again why it’s not just four more years, John? I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a little tired of shooting first and asking questions later or never and so, I think, is most of the rest of the world.

Honestly, I’m not as schooled on Iran as I’d like to be, so I’m going to boil this down to pretty simple terms to make sure I understand it. Iran wants to do stuff we don’t like. We’d like to stop them from doing that stuff. We can try to talk them out of it, offer them something, or blow them up. Is that pretty much it? What does that remind me of… Oh, yeah. Foreign Policy. We’re supposed to believe that Obama is weak, or soft on terrorists, or an Iran-sympathizer because he wants to engage in diplomacy with a potentially antagonistic country? We’re supposed to believe that the better plan is to rattle our saber, huff and puff and then annihilate a city in a shock-and-awe pre-emptive strike without first at least talking to them? Thanks, Mitt, but I think I like Obama’s take on this a little better. And if that’s really what this endorsement is about, you’re going to have a tough time convincing me it’s a bad thing.

Oh, and by the way, that doesn’t mean I’m a Hamas sympathizer. Or a terrorist sympathizer. It just means that I am, like the rest of the world is, a little tired of the constant violence in that part of the world and I’m willing to consider any option that might make a difference over there. We’ve tried shooting them, and you know what? That just seems to piss ‘em off. Maybe it’s time we tried talking.