As part of his campaign to paint Newt Gingrich as crazy, Mitt Romney has focused on Newt’s statement that the Palestinians were an “invented” people. Romney argued at the Drake University debate Saturday night that Newt had used “incendiary words” which would “create extraordinary tumult” and said “I’m not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally.”
Romney and his campaign have continued to hammer that point, calling Newt’s comments “erratic outspokenness.” Virtually the entire conservative media has joined in the Romney campaign’s complaint.
Yet Romney takes a very different position as to incendiary words regarding China’s currency policy, calling China a “currency manipulator” and a “cheat,” and saying he would slap tariffs on Chinese imports his first day in office:
Romney may be right on Chinese currency manipulation (although he likely is wrong on using the WTO to address the issue).
Much as Newt’s comments angered the Palestinians, Romney’s comments angered the Chinese:
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that attacks by leading U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Chinese trade and currency practices were irresponsible, and urged him to stop blaming others.
Romney last week threatened trade sanctions against China if the world’s No. 2 economy does not halt what he said was currency manipulation, unfair subsidies and rampant intellectual property theft.
Romney’s tough stance comes as he has sought to stake out differences with President Barack Obama and tap into the U.S. public’s rising concern over China’s economic and military growth.
“We think that that sort of frequently blaming others, looking for scapegoats and even misleading the public, is an irresponsible attitude,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, Liu told a regular news briefing….
In September, the official Xinhua news agency called Romney’s remarks on the value of the yuan currency an “absurd” attempt to play on U.S. voter fears.
Romney likely is correct about China and does not hesitate to speak the truth even at risk of disrupting the current U.S. administration’s diplomacy with China, yet he calls Newt a “rhetorical bomb thrower” for pointing out the truth about the Palestinians.
So I guess you could say Romney was for rhetorical bombs before he was against them.
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Oh, goody. More rhetoric to tar the entire party as a bunch of cranks. Whether Romney wins the nomination or not, this is going to come back and bite the Republican candidate.
Republicans who provide ammunition to Democrats are known as “Losers.”
“What attracts me about the man is the very thing that Romney criticized, the part that wants to explore the moon and stars, maybe even mine them.” – you’ll like Roger L. Simon’s piece, Explaining Newt, Professor.
It’s working. Here, Romney exposes himself as a practitioner of the progressive, feel-good, above-all-else never-hurt-anyone’s-feelings world view, facts be damned; exactly what we need to rid ourselves of. This is what the preliminaries and primaries and are supposed to do. You hang in there, Mitt; every day helps.
Everyday I wake up and check my favorite conservative blogs, only to be treated to incessant, completely unbalanced (in both senses) attacks on Newt. This morning it was Alana Goodman at Commentary trying to leverage Beck and Savage (of all people) to rock Newt’s world, and about three pieces on NRO (Lowry, Trinko, and a testy post by Jonah Goldberg). National Review’s descent into Romney-shilldom – which they can no longer credibly deny, plead as Jonah might – is particularly distressing.
Thank you, professor, for doing the work that the conservative media is refusing to do. One of the reasons it is so distressing to see them in action these days is because their behavior is more than a little reminiscent of how the liberal MSM acted (and still acts) with regard to Obama. It’s definitely a “culture, not a conspiracy,” though what the culture is, I don’t pretend to know.
This is about far more than pushing one candidate or another. It is because the conservative media has largely ignored or shielded Romney’s serious liabilities from sustained scrutiny that he seems more iron-clad as a general election candidate than he is. As usual, the pundits display a lack of introspection together with an insensitivity to irony – sarcastically noting, as they do, how Newt’s supporters have the imperturbable qualities of the blindly faithful, while they themselves refuse to take any knock on their immortal beloved, from the China remarks to Romneycare, remotely seriously.
The assaults on Newt have been non-stop for the past three weeks. He hasn’t done perfectly, but he’s done rather well. By contrast, Romney has shown a tendency to act in bizarre and, dare I say it, unpredictable, unstable ways when attacked – first in his spate with Perry, then in the Fox interview, then in the “bet.” We hear nothing about that as an election liability. Nothing. All to the contrary, NRO, Commentary, etc., will mention these weird freak-outs when they happen, but then fail (or refuse) to connect them to “electability.” By contrast, everything Newt does “just goes to show…”
I admit it – I’m sick of it. And their misbehavior has made this primary far more acrimonious than it needed to be.
“National Review’s descent into Romney-shilldom – which they can no longer credibly deny, plead as Jonah might – is particularly distressing.”
I was a regular on NRO (The Corner) for many years until I began to voice dislike for Romney and articulate my reasons why, always in a calm, nonthreatening, nontroll, well… boring way. In September my posts starting disappearing. I emailed in, got no replies, emailed others at NRO, no replies. Then, my posts began going immediately to moderation and 4 out of 5 or so were never posted, while the 5th would be posted 3-4 days later after that particular piece had left the front page and gone into archives. Before September was out I found myself permanently logged out of The Corner and unable to log in, effectively banned.
The National Review may no longer claim the genes or legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr. It’s just another GOP squish rag now.
Greta last night finally admitted to trying to put words in Bolton’s mouth. She kept pushing the “Newt the flamethrower” meme, in contradiction to what Bolton was saying.
Bolton said Newt was correct, made some supporting points, Greta still tried to get him to say Newt was being irresponsible. Bolton said no, it was a tempest in a teapot.
I can’t find a link to the video, it was last night on Greta.
Bolton is also considered a “flamethrower” by many. As was Moynihan at times in the past. More flames and truth bombs, please. Usually, the sooner people face the truth, the better.
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