Last week, in the midst of swirling questions about Mitt Romney's private-sector background, there was one line in particular the Republican campaign seized on. Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager for President Obama's re-election team, raised the specter of Romney having committed a "felony" with misstatements in his SEC filings.
Cutter wasn't alone -- even fact-checkers siding with Romney had raised the same point -- but Republicans pounced. For the Obama campaign to even mention "felonies" was proof, they said, of viciousness. It's precisely why Romney asked for an "apology."
That was a few days ago. When we compare Cutter's comment to the latest tirade from former Gov. John Sununu, arguably Romney's top campaign surrogate, let's just say it puts a new spin on who might owe whom an apology.
For those who can't watch clips online, Sununu, in an unhinged attack, told reporters, "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." The quote was in direct reference to the ridiculous, out-of-context talking point we discussed this morning.
Sununu, who has a well-deserved reputation as a GOP loudmouth, also said this morning the president "has no idea how the American system functions," in part because "he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something." (Update: Sununu also went berserk on Fox.)
Remember, this is one of Romney's top surrogates, speaking on behalf of the candidate himself. The intensity of the over-the-top vitriol, following staff shake-ups, and hastily thrown together interviews, also reinforces the perception that the Romney campaign is feeling a sense of desperation and losing its composure.
For its part, the Obama campaign issued a statement, quoting spokesperson Lis Smith saying in response to Sununu, "The Romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end."
Update: Hoping to walk back some of his nonsense, Sununu later said, "What I thought I said but what I didn't say is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business."
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Somebody sounds a little panicked.
Sociopaths are born not made. His religion may have given him a place to find others like him but Mitt was probably pulling the wings off of flies long before he was an active Mormon. His only regrets in life is when he gets caught and daddy or mommy probably bailed him out of lots of unpublicized jams. Now with lots of money it is obvious he believes he is above all of us who sign the back of our paychecks.
How much is "lots of money"?.....Obama is worth millions, or does MSNBC try to bs that fact too?
Your the typical miss informed rand bot timmy , speculating that others are is a rather weak minded move on your part
Obama is rich because he made himself that way; Romney built off what he was given by his father, by victimizing the American middle class. You can be forgiven for not understanding that, Timmy, since it uses big words and complex concepts.
Is it possible to hate Republicans enough?
So much for more 08 campaign promises...broken...oh how fast the libtards forget.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/flashback-obama-decries-negative-ads-as-disservice-on-08-cedar-rapids-visit/
....and so much for those gas price promises too. Is Obama in big oils pockets like Bush was when gas was $3/gal, prolly not hey libs?
Your post makes me hate republicans more...honest!
There's a reason the word is "retard" and not "libtard." Care to guess what it is little man, timmy?
I'm a registered Republican and I kinda like me. In fact, I don't hate anyone. I prefer respect mixed with a little humor. Doesn't mean I have to agree.
Hasn't his Fatness had a heart attack and died yet? I blame health care!
well, look at it this way. Obama probably just won the pothead's vote. That can't be a bad thing. Unless they get stoned and forget to vote. Or...you know...something.
Come on Mittens! Put on your big boy pants! This is the real world now.
So much for more 08 campaign promises...broken...oh how fast the libtards forget.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/flashback-obama-decries-negative-ads-as-disservice-on-08-cedar-rapids-visit/
....and so much for those gas price promises too. Is Obama in big oils pockets like Bush was when gas was $3/gal, prolly not hey libs?
Timmy
I was going to try to make a logical argument then realized that it would probably not make much of a difference. By the way, Tim, gas is lower now than it's been in years. Despite an major offshore oil spill. And yes, we all decide on who will be president based on gas prices.
Troll away, Timmah!
That's the third time for the same post on this thread. Got anything ORIGINAL to say, Timmy? Or did you max out your creativity for the day?
Conservatives don't "get" creativity. They can only parrot lies, and be boring, unfunny douchenozzles. That's why there are no funny conservative comedians. Or good conservative authors. Or influential conservative artists. Or musicians. There are some conservative actors, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head that is an actual great actor is James Earl Jones.
They're the useful idiots of America, and that's just the way the GOP likes 'em. Because it's better if they spend all day posting about "libtards" (I thought that the r-word! was off limits! I guess not, as long as you're not a libtard!) and how Obama isn't a real American!
I just have pity on them. They really have no idea how useless and pointless they are, that they contribute nothing to society, and that their ideals are broken, outdated, and destructive. But, one day the generation that spawned those idiots will be gone, and hopefully their children will choose a more productive path.
They find his lack of a sense of privilege..distasteful.
I am puzzled... How is giving the facts about a person that has opened themselves with the statement "I am running this campaign on my business credentials" and then his opponents use the facts of his business dealings.. and then that person cries foul..." apologize apologize.... you are attacking me personally... " I guess he would feel threaten since corporations are people too......
What did Romney think that no one would examine his corporation??????
So, Sununu didn't realize what he was actually saying while he was speaking? What a load of crap. If you're unaware of the disconnect between your brain and your mouth, you a) should not be a public servant, and b) should keep your mouth shut.
I'm sure he was completely aware of what he was saying; just not smart enough to anticipate having to walk it back later and how stupid his explanation would sound.
The whole thing is shady if you ask me. That hole Romney is digging for himself by not coming clean is getting deeper and deeper.
I don't think anyone who is in the House, Senate or especially the office of the President should have ANY MONEY ANYWHERE BUT THE U.S.A.....They should not be allowed to have money in foreign banks or business.....it is betting against the USA...THAT IS UN AMERICAN..... no wonder Romeny want deregulations.....he want to hide and make more money on others shores.....he should try and be patriotic and have his money here....the american way.!
You know it's amazing how incensed the 1% become when the "help" say anything at all
Hell-o fellow AMericans, our country is and has been at war.
Why isn't dodging taxes while his countrymen are dying for his right to be rich, considered treason?
The other day, I was talking to my mom about the election. She's a firmly upper-middle-class, traditional kind of person who leans to the libertarian side of social issues and some economic stuff.
What she said about Romney pretty much solidified in my mind why he's destined to lose. "Obama seems like a nice guy, even though I don't like some of his policies," she said. "But, I just hate Mitt Romney. He seems like the kind of jackass who would sit at your table, boss you around and monopolize your time, and leave a 15% tip." (We were both servers for many years, until she got her degree. With evil government subsidized loans!)
That's why attacks like this only serve to work against Mittens. He's not a politician. He's a douchey private-equity guy. He doesn't reach out to people, and he always looks like someone just forced him to lick p*ss off of a nettle. People don't see him as being any more of a "real American" than President Obama.
Most "real" Americans can't afford an elevator for their house, even if they need it for a disability, let alone a goddamn elevator for their Bentleys. Romney can, fortunately for this country, never transition out of Primary-Mode, because he's got nothing else.
Health Reform: Romney has nothing to distance himself from Obama, people aren't buying the "it worked at the state-level but not at the federal-level bull.
His business record: he's given too many conflicting answers as to when he left Bain, and what his level of involvement was. He's also getting killed over the facts of his company outsourcing jobs (whether or not that was a good or a bad thing in some instances, can be debated. But it's hard to spin outsourcing in this economy.)
His record on everything else: a series of flip-flops and muddled ideals that makes him seem, whether this is accurate or not, that he's got no moral center, an idea that only serves to reinforce the idea of the "weirdness" of his Mormonism.
His foreign policy: people are sick of wars, sick of foreign intervention. Yet, Romney has the same neo-con schizophrenics working for him that engineered the Iraq war, and want to engineer an Iranian war. The people who lied about a "world-wide global terror network" that never existed anywhere but their fevered imaginations, which led to the dismantling of civil liberties and freedoms that we enjoyed without consequence for generations.
Romney is just bad. Bad at politics. Bad at policy. Bad at being a sympathetic human being. And, thank God, he will never, ever be President of the United States.
Doesn't this rhetoric sound all too familiar: to deny that a Black person is "an American"? I don't remember any presidential campaign in recent memory (I've witnessed them since 1992) that has systematically disputed the opponent's "Americanness." How much clearer can the racist undertones be?
For those who can't watch clips online, Sununu, in an unhinged attack, told reporters, "I wish this president would learn how to be an American."
Considering the present state of the GOP one has to wonder just what they think being "American" means.
Does being American mean avoiding the price of freedom by avoiding taxes?
Does it mean putting self-interests and profits above one's country and its people?
Does it mean suppressing the vote?
Does it mean ignoring Global Warming and evolution at the peril of becoming extinct?
Does it mean pandering to bigots and anti-civil rights groups by denouncing the freedom to choose contraception or abortion or who represents you?
Why do republicans hate America and love war?
Why do they hate public education when most of them could never afford a private one?
Why do they want the country to be owned by the few rather than the many?
Have they ever read the Constitution? The Declaration? the writings of our founders?For that matter did they take any Civics courses or American History(other than some perverted history where Jefferson is not mentioned but Saint Ronny gets a hundred pages of cherry picked moments?
I feel sure Obama is unharmed by such desperate attempts by such lower life forms.
Hello? Isn't the main issue jobs and doesn't Rmoney use his business know how and experience as the main qualifier? So, we try look into that and ask "how did his business operate and how did the end result help or hinder jobs in the U.S.? Let's see tax returns and the results for jobs.
We have no evidence Rmoney was not responsible during those outsourcing. So, was he lying when he signed official documents or when he keeps telling us he wasn't responsible for those Steel plant workers being laid off? I think we know the answers because Rmoney doesn't want to show his true experience, but an imaginary one. Well. I imagine more tax cuts for corporations, more corporate money for expected legislation that benefits corporations with NO regulating, not even tax incentives for hiring Americans? Should be simple to imagine even more Bush era activities, which has a dismal, dismal record for jobs in America.
We've seen that jobs graph some people wish to deny. That giant sucking sound Perot said we'd hear came to pass. We heard it, no doubt American public can agree on that. So if we cannot redo NAFTA and GATT, then what's left? Cut more jobs and more taxes and have jobs keep getting more and more stagnant? No, let's embrace the truth that we need revenue, we need jobs, both go hand in hand, but how to get business to hire? They wait for certainty, but we had tax cuts and LOST jobs due to the Great Recession. We handed over money to banks and they made themselves even bigger. Are they doing anything to help resolve the problem they had everything to do with giving loans out like candy?
Businesses are saying we are uncertain and want a government guarantee, so let's give a ton of money to keep us outsourcing instead of hiring people to make Olympic uniforms and all those shirts and sweat pants, hats, coffee mugs, etc. that people will be buying in the next month or two. I can guarantee those items will sell, so let's get busy and hire workers for that. Also, there is certainty in ACA, but you want to keep repealing it instead of hiring people to make the medical related items the baby boomers are guaranteed to be buying, whether insurance pays or they pay, there will be demand for those things.
The "American formula for creating business" is to build the infrastructure, roads, bridges, electric lines, etc and provide education to a healthy, strong society who then take the education and build a business using the American infrastructure which is first created with American tax dollars. We win globally because of our education and infrastructure.
"Infoxicated" - someone under the influence of Fox News
Why is former governor SUNUNU saying such things about our President being an American. Well at lease our President was born in one of our 50 states, unlike you who was born in HAVANA, CUBA. Look at your own house, befor throwning stones.
"Infoxicated" - someone under the influence of Fox News
So, after seeing evidence of Rmoney being responsible (CEO) at Bain we can really look at Kaybee Toys with Rmoney's face on it. There was a store in the nearby town, leasing space from the mall, providing some jobs and offering a closer, more convenient place for customers to shop for toys. The employees would go buy their lunch at the food court, keeping people busy and profit for the music store, shoe store, clothing store, cell phone store, car payments and insurance, whatever... you know the economy worked for more people.
The story of Kaybee Toys being taken over (not a troubled business) by Bain, KB gone, with online business referred to Toys R Us.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511407
So the CEO bonus and salaries are a byproduct of the type of business Vulture/venture capitalists promote, leading to enriching themselves by taking from employees. The issue is not those people keeping what they earned, it is bass ackward. They prey upon economic consolidation and cutting jobs. and have the audacity to say I do not owe any taxes on the money I took from those companies we killed.
Romney says "Obama is changing the nature of America" ?
Romney is trying to change America from a Democracy to a Plutocracy!
Plutocracy is a government ruled by the wealthy class!
Basic problem with guys like shooter trying to justify the unjustibiable is that it is those very same guys who will be the first ones sacrificed by Romney, Sununu and friends simply for their pleasure.
I have to be honest. I didn't know John Sununu was still alive.
Just out of curiosity, what is it exactly that qualifies Mr. Sununu to decide who and who is not a patriot. What is the criteria? I am a Disabled American Veteran, Army and I do not presume to make any such declarations about other Americans. So why him?