Associated Press
Even Mitt Romney's allies found it hard to believe: in his first national address as the Republican Party's official presidential nominee, Romney delivered a 4,000-word speech that failed to acknowledge the war the U.S. is still fighting.
The word "Afghanistan" was not uttered, even in passing. There were no references to "veterans" or "troops," either. The Associated Press found that, despite the fact that the U.S. is in the midst of the longest war in our history, Romney "became the first Republican since 1952 to accept his party's nomination without mentioning war."
Yesterday, Team Romney tried to justify the omission.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior campaign aide said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday that in giving a talk to American Legion in Indianapolis, Romney had mentioned Afghanistan and possible defense cuts.
"Governor Romney thought it was a privilege to be speaking to people who had served," he said, "and in that speech, he talked about Afghanistan, and he also talked about the $1 trillion in defense cuts taking place under this president."
First, half the $1 trillion in defense cuts are coming from congressional Republicans, including Romney's running mate. For Fehrnstrom to suggest otherwise is dishonest.
Second, this explanation for ignoring an ongoing war is wholly unpersuasive. It's true that on Wednesday, Romney delivered remarks to the American Legion, which were not nationally televised. It was a 2,000-word speech, and this was the entirety of the candidate's comments on the war: "And we are still at war in Afghanistan. We still have uniformed men and women in conflict, risking their lives just as you once did."
That's it. That's literally all Romney had to say on the subject. A day later, Romney spoke to the nation, and said nothing about the conflict or those fighting in our name.
Fehrnstrom's argument, in effect, is, "You expect the would-be Commander in Chief to mention an ongoing war twice?" Yes, Eric, we do.
If Romney becomes president early next year, he'll have tens of thousands of American troops on the ground in Afghanistan -- but no one seems to have any idea what he intends to do with them or when he might want to consider bringing them home.
The fact that Romney seems to forget the nation is at war isn't an encouraging sign.
Leave a Comment:
Come on Benen! You can't expect the CEO of our Company to know everything at all times regarding one of so many subsidiaries as he navigates our bulk finances through tax saving havens off shore, can you?
Cut him a break! So he forgot to mention that division of the firm!
(Hey Mitt, go back to Bain, cause you're giving me a pain!) -Kevo
What’s there to talk about, the war is winding down, our troops will be coming home starting in 2014 and a new president will be taking over, like it’s going to make a difference. This great country of ours needs a total do over….. It’s up to the people to make a difference not who’s in the white house. We need to start at home. Educate our children that your future is what you make of it…. Study, find what motivates you whether it be…higher education and using your brain or using your hands to build or fix things….but be the master of your own destiny and stop relying on the government to “Bail” you out….Bail yourself out and keep moving forward and hopefully before it’s all said and done you left a legacy and an example for the next generation. Look at you….every word you utter will be saved for generations to come….you went to school and went out there and made a life for YOURSELF….the government didn’t build that or did they… =
What's there to talk about...aside from all these things relating to the war that I mentioned? Will Romney be keeping the drawdown or will he renegotiate? What about our other conflicts in the world? Nope nothing to talk about with international policies- instead let's employ a red herring using a bunch of words that are completely non specific! They sound nice, but don't actually mean anything!!! Educate yourself! And if you can't afford to well that's your problem- no government hand outs like schools or public universities! It's up to the people to make a difference which is totally why we don't have politicians in the first place! Elections are pointless! And those roads you drive on and the police that keep you safe and the water you drink and all the other luxuries of life that you as a privileged American have because your government went out of it's way to ensure that you'd have those privileges weren't done by the government they were done by you!
What do you mean my ego is out of whack????
...again how is any of this not satire?
I didn't know a Republican could string together that many platitudes at once. The cut-and-paste feature really does work, doesn't it?
How is it that civil action and individual effort are somehow mutually exclusive? You really believe americans don't have the intellectual or physical ability to be self motivated and good citizens at the same time? What kind of Goofy Ayn Rand for President fantasyland/distopia do you live in?
This is it folks... The job creators can't take the pressure of being good neighbors and ... I dunno... creative at the same time? It's just too exhausting.
And THIS is the problem with the entire Romney campaign...the inability to 'connect the dots'...you want to be about the ECONOMY? Then let's talk war. You want to talk about the ECONOMY? Let's talk women and your utter inability to understand contraception. You want to talk about the ECONOMY? Let's talk climate change. You want to talk about the ECONOMY? Let's talk energy.
And they want to call Romney a leader?
Romney claiming to be a Christian and on top of it a Clergyman is the biggest joke of the day. Romney is no different to someone like Pat Robertson proclaiming to be God’s messenger and accumulate huge wealth at the cost of the poor. These men can proclaim whatever they want, but in reality, are the biggest hypocrites in the eyes of God. These men are blasphemers and twisting the truths of Jesus for craving power, corruption, greed, arrogance, being hypocrites, and deceiving. And these men want to call themselves men of God don’t make me laugh. If anything these men have shown by their actions very much the opposite of what Jesus really wanted. For too long they have distorted the truth of Jesus and some day they will be facing the price for what they have done and continue to do. The light always knows what you have done and there will be no rock for you to hide under. They even want people to keep being fooled by an incomplete bible and not even bring Jesus’ entire gospels back together. They have become the biggest deceivers around. And using the excuse of different groups had these gospels that is just an illusion, when these gospels are still all about Jesus. But they don’t want to because they want to keep up these falsehoods for power and control thus are deceivers and liars. The full truth comes from all of Jesus’ gospels, not a deception of lies.
Go read http://www.mormonwiki.org/Lying_for_the_Lord... it will amaze you!
Well what can you say Mego-516015 Romney is never short of lies. Romney follows his so-called religion pretty closely doesn't he. Even though that religion is very short in many good things. And Romney out of all this wants to call himself a Christian on top of it. Does Romney ever get into telling any truth besides lies? That type of person so fully a liar is way too dangerous and stupid for America.
Devout Mormons, like Romney are conscientious objectors to ALL wars. God forbid he's elected, but how does he intend on being the commander in chief over the military??
He can't ride two horses with one ass, even if his is one that dances.
I think you've got the wrong religion, there. Mormons have a rather complicated history when it comes to military service, particularly in the post WWII era, but pacifists they ain't.
Devout Mormons, like Romney are conscientious objectors to ALL wars.
Is that really a bad thing? I remember most of my adult life (I'm in my 50s) that generally the Republicans were viewed as the war "Hawks" and Democrats were the one's for peace and generally anti-war. To me seeing comments on how Romney would not be a good Commander-In-Chief makes it look like the Democrats want to have a pro-military President. I am not singling out you comment on thei globalove - I just see a lot of comments lately on how Romney would not be able to wage war very good, more or less. Just find it interesting coming from the left. Of course that is not the intent of some or most of the comments regarding the war, but if someone from the 60's or 70's was transported to now and read some comments on the Maddow blog they would probably assume Romney was a Democrat and the comments were from right leaning bloggers.
Let's clarify a few things, skippy:
Robme has stated:
Robme is a war hawk eager to wage war with other people's children who serve in the military, not his own children.
Robme will be worse than Bush as Commander in Chief: He wants to start wars with absolutely no idea on how to win them and absolutely no ability to end the wars and the mess that he created.
Right wing crackpots who try to spin this in any other way are completely out of their ever loving minds.
@Skip-
That's interesting I don't recall a lot of people saying that they thought Romney was soft on war??? I recall a lot of people saying that they belief Romney will start another war either with Iran, will escalate with Pakistan, or will involve us with Syria and I have heard arguments from both sides as to whether or not we should.
Personally I am OK with intervention in Syria and Darfur, Sudan. I do not condone genocide in any way and I think when the US does not get involved immediately to stop genocide that makes us complicit in the act. However I also realize there are many, many more concerns at play than just my knee jerk emotional reaction to the idea of genocide (problems with Russia and China, the fact that we've been at war for so long, the fact that we're in such debt, etc). Most liberals that I talk to want us out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and want peace unless they are struggling with the 2 countries that I named. Most liberals that I talk to aren't advocating for, say, war with Iran which seems to be the implication with Republicans.
In the case of the commentator above I don't think he was advocating that we go to war, I think he was commenting on the fact that we are at war. How does one reconcile the belief that war is wrong while simultaneously carrying out a war?
But it is not true that Mormons don't support war. I once actually had to endure a debate between a Jehovah's Witness (JW's are anti-war) and a Mormon on this issue. Mormons follow similar beliefs to that of the pro-war Catholic side: that war is OK as long as you are protecting the innocent and downtrodden (for the record not all Catholics support the idea of war; many Catholics believe war is an abomination and against the teachings of Christ). In summary the debate ended up sounding like two nerds at a StarTrek convention debating who was better- Picard or Kirk.
I think Obama will take good advantage of that. He kicked off his "Road to Charlotte" in Des Moines, and was introduced by an Iraq War vet, and began his speech by thanking the troops; he talked about bringing home troops from Iraq, and he explicitly discussed the promise to serve vetrs as well when they get home as they served us overseas.
He omitted this item because he intends his benefactors to profit greatly from the continued demise of our hero's in the desolate permawar meant to enrich his cronies.
Plus if the vets would stop listening to Faux Snooze as so many do, they'd learn that the Voucherization of Medical Care includes the Veteran's Administration. Republicans just hate the fact that the best medical care in America is done by government-paid doctors working with bureaucrats.
Rachel needs to open the Department of Corrections here-- one of the GOP speakers did mention the troops in Afghanistan!
Client Eastwood asked his imaginary President Obama: "Why don't you just bring them home now?"
His comment received a nic eround of applause from the Republicans in attendance-- something the warhawks in the GOP might wish to remember in the next two months.