First, though, it was a banner week for Romney lies. As noted in this outraged article, Romney "interpreted"
a speech of Obama's about his own family as a personal attack on Mitt's father George Romney and a "pattern" of attacks on "Americans," thus pushing all the conservative paranoia buttons: Obama is not "American" somehow, the liberals hate success and are coming for you personally, and so on:
It is a shame Democrats won't take the hint and realize that since they are going to accused of attacking Romney's dad, Romney's success, and Romney's religion no matter what they do, they might as well do it. They won't even though it is a target rich environment. Dad's untrained national guard massacred people on the streets in Detroit in '68, Romney's success is more white collar crime than competition, and Romney's religious office has been practice for his lying style.
The author of this story is so incensed he can think of no worse insult for Romney than "professional liar," but that is hardly a strong enough term. Romney is a high official of a church whose hierarchy are minimally trained volunteers who are required to piece together the whims of the Prophet into a system the best they can. For years, Romney has directed the spiritual life of thousands of Boston area people based on...whatever he thinks will work. It is obviously great practice in making stuff up and saying it with a straight face.
Nonetheless, there are some whoppers so big even Romney leaves them to others Having vocally opposed the auto bailout as destructive to the industry (because it didn't break the United Auto Workers' union, the goal of every Republican in Michigan for the last seventy years), Romney can hardly say the auto bailout was his idea. So one of his campaign heavies said it instead.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/fehrnstrom-obama-followed-mitt-romneys-advice-on-auto-bailout.php
It seems very laughable that Romney would even try these lies, and I have previously noted the intimidation factor which is so obviously one reason for them. But to some extent this propaganda offensive, repeated endlessly, does work.
To see how, we turn to Jimmy Carter, who offered the ludicrous opinion that Romney is a "moderate," and shows that even somebody who should know better can be fooled by Romney's very instability into seeing what he wants to see.
Carter published a book on "The Virtues of Aging" in 1998, a book that conspicuously avoided all mention of mental deterioration, Alzheimers, and dementia, even though preventing that that is an obsessive concern of many elderly. Carter has always been a man who sees what he wants to see, rather than what is, which is why even in his productive days he surrounded himself with drug dealers, corrupt bankers, military payroll padders, and billionaire thugs like the Stephens family of Arkansas. In the case of Mitt Romney, the lies of the candidate are so many that Carter made up a self-serving lie, that Romney is "really" a moderate underneath his conservative veneer.
In this case, Carter has not followed the campaign, since any glimpse of prime time t.v. in the past few months would have taught him that Santorum sometimes voted for tax increases and government programs, as did Gingrich. In short, Carter would have discovered that the claim that Romney was "more moderate" than the others was prima facie false.
It's also clear Carter never followed Romney's tenure in Massachusetts, where the Governor was faced with a Democratic supermajority of 85%, something few other leading Republican politicians have ever seen, and which more than accounts for his appearance of "moderation." Indeed, Romney was not the least bit moderate in his obstructions, sometimes illegal, taken to thwart the will of that majority. When he left that office, his aides replaced their own hard drives in order to hide their emails.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/29806969/detail.html
That Romney once claimed to be progressive is true. However, Romney being a compulsive liar, it is fairly certain he never was. His concrete proposals to privatize social security, end inheritance tax, and outsource government functions is as hard right and self-serving as any ever advocated by any Republican candidate.
Romney is the candidate of the 1%, even though income maldistribution has been a direct cause of unemployment and economic stagnation in the USA. In Europe, which Romney scornfully dismisses for its debt, it is clear there is a correlation between government austerity required by Euro rules and economic distress. Listening to Romney, you might never know that Greece had the highest economic growth rate in the world after Japan from 1950 to 1973, substantially higher than in the United States, and that Greece consistently grew faster than the EU average right up until 2008. You'd never know that France, where the retirement age is 60, vacations average 6 weeks per year, and health care is practically free....France has had more total economic growth than the United States since 1945 and the leading candidate for president has advocated a 75% tax on the rich. You might miss that Germany, where unions have a seat on every corporate board of directors, now has the highest employment in its history, that it runs both trade and current account surpluses every year despite low spending on education and concentration on manufacturing; and has 5% more of the total population employed than the United States does. Yes, they all have problems, and Greece's has been aggravated by the austerity demanded by its EU partners. However, European industry has been remarkably resilient despite a high currency and competition from India and China.
It is Romney's "sacred mission" to prevent anything like that ever happening in the United States, and since it would only benefit the United States if it did, that mission has to be accomplished through lies.
The real difference between Obama's upbringing and Romney's, is that Obama had to fight to get anyone in authority to take him seriously. Bush didn't have to "fight" to be taken seriously, but then again he wasn't taken seriously and was treated like a nonentity even by his own vice-president. Romney, in contrast, was given leadership positions all his life, and even teased he was the fulfillment of Mormon prophecy. When Romney went on Mormon mission, it wasn't to ring doorbells in the third world but to manage other missionaries in wealthy France. When Romney was brought to Bain Capital and the Salt Lake Olympics, it was as CEO despite no experience in these fields. He brags that he needed guarantees to agree to serve as Bain CEO, and it is highly likely there were similar guarantees at Salt Lake. George W. Bush never had so much handed to him. The only apparent rejection Romney has faced in life other than political defeats, was his teenage girlfriend Ann breaking up with him when he was in France. He wound up in two car wrecks, the first involving a fatality and nearly claiming his life. Supposedly he didn't cause it, and he definitely won Ann Romney back. We can only hope self-injury and vehicular manslaughter were not his response to rejection.
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