Sounding and Acting Like Reagan, Romney Has Them Terrified

[Davienne]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/sounding_and_acting_like_rea...

 

 

I  knew Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a friend of mine. And Mitt Romney is  reminding me an awful lot of Ronald Reagan.

The  comments for which Romney is being so relentlessly and viciously scorned by  Barack Obama and his merry band of media puppets sounds to me exactly like  comments Ronald Reagan would have made.

It  is indeed "disgraceful" for the US government to respond to the threat of an  attack against an American embassy by issuing a statement condemning "the  continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of  Muslims" and denouncing hurting their feelings as an "abuse" of free speech -  and then as the embassy was being overrun and our flag burned issuing another  statement saying they stand by that.

"It's  disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn  attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the  attacks."

Mitt  Romney was simply but forcefully expressing, as Ronald Reagan so often did, what  most Americans think and how they feel. And you can bet the Obama campaign  realized this and found it frightening.

They  said that they were "shocked" that Romney "would choose to launch a political  attack" -- the usual and expected sort of political statement gibberish -- but  isn't it revealing what they did?  The Obama White House asked its media  allies to report that the statement that Romney took such exception to "doesn't  reflect the views of the U.S. government."

What?  Isn't a U.S. Embassy an important part of the U.S. government, and all the more  so when that embassy happens to be located in a country of great consequence to  U.S. national interests? Isn't the U.S. Ambassador who leads that embassy - as  anyone who is or ever has been one loves to remind people - the personal  representative of the President of the United States?  Wasn't the Obama  Administration claiming that the U.S. government does not reflect the views of  the U.S. government?

No  matter. The media fell in line and trumpeted the charade.

Only  days before, Democratic Party strategists had been boasting that this year they  were going to turn on its head the usual order in which the Republican candidate  for president is more trusted on foreign policy and the Democrat perceived to be  weak because they were going to tout Obama "successes" overseas as a way to  offset his failures at home.

And  only a week earlier, Obama had in his acceptance speech mocked Romney as "new"  to foreign affairs, doing so with supreme  confidence that the media would not point out that he himself had claimed that  his having lived in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, between  the ages of six and ten counted for foreign policy experience.

How  could Obama and his media allies counter the words that Romney had said that  were resonating so well with average Americans?

First:  Ignore what Romney actually said.  Ignore the fact that the Obama White  House itself claimed to take exception to what Romney had taken exception  to.

Next:  Ignore the fact that Barack Obama and John Kerry constantly carped about George  W. Bush's handling of crises and instead pretend that there is something  inherently wrong about a candidate for President criticizing an incumbent  president during a crisis.

Then:  Attack the very idea that Mitt Romney had dared say anything.

President  Obama held a press conference September  12^th at which he, naturally, bemoaned the killing of Americans and  violence and spoke vaguely about justice being done. Secretary of State Hillary  Clinton stood at his side. So many questions come to mind -- but neither of them  took questions and soon Obama was off to Vegas to campaign and raise money.

Quite  a contrast with what the media had in store for Mitt Romney. Certain journalists  banned together and plotted a strategy for hammering Romney. They deliberately  conspired to make it appear that the key thing that should be on the minds of  the American people that day was the thought that it is almost beneath contempt  that the challenger would challenge the Obama Administration for placing our  first emphasis on apologetic worrying that some Muslims might have had their  feelings hurt. Not one reporter at Romney's news conference asked him why he  thought that was wrong.  Instead every - every - question put to him was a  not-so-subtle denunciation of his having dared to criticize.

Calling  Romney's statement "toughly worded," one asked, "Do you regret the tone?"   Another asked if he thought it "appropriate" to criticize when the crisis was  "unfolding." Another asked if he thought he was "jumping the  gun."

Note  the difference:  Barack Obama, who can depend on the media to fawn over him  rather than challenge him, took no chance that some difficult question might  come his way. Mitt Romney, who risks being accused of making a gaffe if he says  hello, stood there like a man, like a leader, like a real President, stood firm  and forcefully articulated why the United States needs to act like the great and  powerful country that it is. Just like Reagan would.  Check  it out.

Barack  Obama then sat down with one of his main sponsors, CBS' 60 Minutes, and said silly things such as that Mitt  Romney shoots first and aims later without any fear they would remind him that  he was the guy who denounced the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police department for  acting "stupidly" while admitting he had no idea of any facts in the case to  which he had referred. And without any fear that even such strong evidence that  his foreign policy was a complete debacle they might ask him if he still  believes, as he claimed the last time he sat down with 60 Minutes, that  he is at least America's fourth greatest President.

Obama  and Hillary Clinton then effectively hid, even though they had little cause to  worry that their media allies would turn on them and ask any truly difficult  questions about possible dereliction of duty and whether they stand by their  claims that what happened in Cairo and Benghazi was really just the work of a  few misguided people rather than clear evidence that radical Islam is at war  with us.

They  can probably count on the media to cling to the pretext that this violent uproar  is simply all about some poorly done and little-viewed film that had been around  a couple of months and has little or nothing to do with a deliberate strategy by  radical Islamists. The fact that so many Muslims supposedly suddenly got so  worked up about it and decided to "protest" on a day that happened to be the  11^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America?  What a  coincidence!  The fact that so many participants in these spontaneous  outbursts just happened to have rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic  weapons with them?  Well, ah, ah...

Three  days after the Cairo and Benghazi attacks, as radical Islamists were conducting  assaults against US diplomatic missions and other properties across the Middle  East, North Africa, Europe and Asia, the White House Press Secretary stepped  forward to assure the American on behalf of President Obama  that all this  violence and turmoil  "is in response not to United States policy, and not   to, obviously, the administration, or the American people, but it is in  response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and  disgusting."

Got  it?   What we and the rest of the world were witnessing was nothing  more than merely a whole bunch of movie critics run  amok.

Don't  people who are desperate and terrified that the tide has turned against them  have a knack for saying incredibly dopey things?

This  is a foreign policy crisis of the highest magnitude.  And the more the  American people see of it and think about it, the more it will sink in that  during this great crisis Mitt Romney sounded and acted as Ronald Reagan would  while Barack Obama sounded and acted as Jimmy Carter would.

And  this stark contrast is going to help cause a Romney landslide on November  6^th.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/sounding_and_acting_like_rea...