T he United Kingdom, America’s closest friend in peace and ally in war for nearly a century, has spent seven years and £9 billion on hosting this year’s Summer Olympic Games — a very big deal for a proud people.
Try to imagine the impression Republican president wannabe Mitt Romney made shortly after arriving in London yesterday when he told NBC’s Brian Williams:
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“There are a few things that were disconcerting, The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials — that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
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If you have trouble appreciating what an arrogant, ignorant thing Romney did by uttering those words, let’s put the shoe on the other foot.
State dinners are exquisite affairs hosted by heads of government and attended by the highest officials of government, including Cabinet secretaries congressional leaders, top-rank military officers, high-level diplomats, and so on. Generally, state dinners are held to fete heads of state of friendly countries. They’re considered one of the highest diplomatic honors a country can bestow on a guest.
Suppose the U.K.’s Prime Minister David Cameron were to be guest of honor at a state dinner at the White House. President Obama offers a gracious toast welcoming Cameron and lauding British-American friendship. Cameron then rises to offer a toast in return:
“Thank you for the kind words, Mr. President, and for inviting me to dinner. I just hope the chef knows what he’s doing because I’ve heard White House food is sometimes as greasy as it is bland. I guess we’ll just have to see once the meal is served.”
Casting doubt on the U.K.’s preparedness to host the Olympics wasn’t Romney’s only screw-up. He also announced to the world he had been briefed by the head of MI-6, the U.K.’s secretive intelligence service — a colossal breach of protocol. The British press noted it’s highly unusual for the candidate of a foreign country’s opposition party to receive such a briefing, and unheard of for anyone who’s received such a briefing to blab about it to the media.
Even before Romney’s gaffe-a-thon trip began one of his neocon aides had made a racially tainted overture to the British. He claimed Romney would be better able to conduct America’s relationship with the U.K. because of a “shared Anglo-Saxon heritage.” That was a slap at President Barack Obama, whose dark skin is emblematic of a partially different heritage.
Cameron, London’s mayor and the British media understandably reacted to Romney’s affronts with varying degrees of umbrage and disdain.
Undaunted, Romney pressed on toward the fund-raising event that was undoubtedly the primary objective of his assault on the U.K. Held at the Mandarin Hotel, it might not have gone much better than the rest of his visit.
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His campaign team claimed the event took $2m in donations, but there were reports earlier that ticket prices had been lowered, and that some people had been offered free passes.
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You might think Romney’s London remarks were enough Republican arrogance and ignorance for one day, but you’d be wrong. Back home, Romney surrogates sent out to douse the fire used gasoline instead of water.
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Romney’s campaign team set up a conference call with US reporters in an attempt to limit the damage from the faltering UK visit. The campaign fielded Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in Romney’s defence. “We’re not worried about overseas headlines. We’re worried about voters back here in America,” Jindal said in comments reported by Talking Points Memo.
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In other words, screw the Brits and other foreigners, and what they think. All we care about is what American voters think.
As we learned during George W. Bush’s reign of error, conservative Republicans have a distinctively perverse approach to foreign affairs. It’s one that dispenses with manners and diplomacy in favor of displays of ignorance, arrogance and the uttering of gratuitous insults.
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Mitt Romney is not ready for primetime. The contrast between the relaxed, grounded, articulate, down-to-earth, thoughtful President and this stiff, out-of-touch, clumsy, arrogant, waffling default GOP candidate is stark.
These gaffes, on a trip designed to avoid any opportunity for controversy, are totally self-inflicted.
If his gaffes weren’t such an embarrassment to the U.S. and insulting to our allies across the pond, I’d be laughing out loud. The gall of of this arrogant ignoramus in criticizing the host country, slighting our president and blatantly campaigning overseas is simply mind boggling. As one British pundit remarked, he makes Sarah Palin almost look smart. Lordy, I shudder to think what he’s going to say when he gets to Israel.
Oh, come on you unAmerican traitors! At least he didn’t bow or show any kind of respect or weakness! I hope he at least offered to strap the Queen’s corgis to the top of his car and take them for a ride. /amused snarkage
The arrogant and condescending “Mitt the Twit” has made his mark in Britain.
Yes, he did “build that” image.
I really think a lot of this stems from his “entitlement” mentality. He figures since he made a bunch of money that should take care of everything else too.
I’ve gotta be honest, even when you put the shoe on the other foot, Romney’s comments on the UK’s preparedness were harmless and you’re making a big deal out of nothing.
The briefing by MI6? Sounds contrived and exaggerated by unfriendly UK media.
Anglo-Saxon? Not a Romney gaffe, so why does it make your list? Perhaps because it reinforces the racist narrative you already buy into about Republicans, but it was an aid, not Romney. And it wasn’t racist.
None of this matters. I think you know it, but you love any opportunity to attack Romney.
Terrell, I know what you mean about not being ready. Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of dollars can and will overcome lots of bad impressions. The kind of bad impressions generated by arrogance, ignorance, ineptitude and promoting the opposite of what’s in 95 percent of Americans’ own best interests.
L.P., I don’t think Romney makes Palin look smart by comparison. He does make her look somewhat tactful by comparison. That’s not saying much, though.
Mrs. B., Romney is probably more comfortable in the midst of people he can fire or have fired. In that environment Romney can perpetrate gaffes knowing anyone who criticizes or even looks appalled can be gotten rid of. That way, he’ll never have to suffer the outward signs of their disapproval again.
Dave, made his mark and his haul of loot. Another day, another offended nation, another $1 to $2 million.
Jim, as in, “If my critics and detractors know so much, why aren’t they as rich as I am?” That’s probably part of it, but I think most of Romney’s problem is that he has an infinite ability to rationalize, especially about getting what he wants, and no conscience. I think he’s farther down that road than George W. Bush, which is scary.
H.R., all of this matters to many people and should matter to everyone, yourself included. You claim I love to “attack Romney.” If, as I suspect, you think Romney and all the things he says and does in pursuit of getting what he wants now are OK, my pointing out those things and criticizing must seem like attacks. But your bias about my criticisms doesn’t negate the validity of my criticisms. Only proving the facts on which my criticisms are based are wrong can negate my criticism. On that score you offer only your own biased judgment, no contradictory facts. Not a one.
“Anglo-Saxon? Not a Romney gaffe, so why does it make your list?”
That gaffe made my list because it relates to Romney’s London trip.
While no candidate can clear everything every aide and staffer says, all candidates are responsible for what their people say and do in their capacities as part of the campaign. Interestingly, it was on that basis that George H.W,. Bush ran off Karl Rove, who was then George W.’s new best friend. If Romney denounced the statement and offloaded the aide, I missed it. Even then the fact he had an aide of that mindset says something.
There is no racist narrative, just a record of things implied, said, written, depicted and done. Republicans, plain and tea party, and many libertarians wrote, and continue to write, that record. The rest of us just point the record out.
SW, denying that you routinely attack Romney and Republicans does little for your credibility.
And you constantly spewing nonsense, instead of discussing the wholly-ACCURATE posts about Willard…. what does that say about YOUR credibility? Since you have proven yourself utterly unable to actually have a discussion about any of this, why on Earth should anyone bother to take you the least bit seriously?
I think HR got his comments from the WSJ. I read the same thing there. Attack the British press. Funny, isn’t it, that it was The Sun – owned by none other than Rupert Murdoch – that had the huge headline “Mitt the Twit.” Rupert has been very busy on Twitter criticizing Mittens.
And then there’s this from Charles Krauthammer: “”It’s unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives,” he lamented. And then he went on to say Mittens had a golden opportunity and he blew it.
To put it in my own words: The unmitigated gall of this arrogant imbecile to insult the host country and its people, and to carry his campaign overseas while slamming our president, demonstrates a mindbogglingly lack of diplomacy. Norquist has stated that they don’t need a president who thinks but one who will do do what he’s told to do. Maybe his billion dollar handlers should put a knee sock in his mouth because he sure doesn’t have the ability to think first and speak later.
“Lordy, I shudder to think what he’s going to say when he gets to Israel.”
Don’t worry, Romney has it covered. He’s gonna tickle his audiences with Jew jokes and Polish jokes when he gets to Tel Aviv and Warsaw.
The scariest part of this is, as Heathen Republican says, “none of this matters.” I hate to admit it but, according to the Daily Tracking Poll at Talking Points Memo, Romney’s poll ratings have actually gone up by two percentage points in the past couple of days. This is not encouraging.
Well said, L.P. I saw video of Krauthammer’s reaction. He also seemed to be straining for a stronger synonym for “stupid.” I guess he’s just another one of us liberals who love to attack Romney out of sheer partisan enmity.
Tom, after the way things went in 2000, 2004 and 2010, it’s hard to be surprised. A large segment of the U.S. electorate consists of masochists in search of more punishment and pain.
“Anglo-Saxon? Not a Romney gaffe, so why does it make your list?”
Funny, that. Some Democratic pundit Hillary somethibg or other, not Clinton, made a comment about Ann Romeny, and all hell broke lose.
The Germans are not amused by Romney either:
From Der Spiegel:
Travel educates. As a result one should assume that Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger of Barack Obama, wants to learn something during his visit to Israel. Wrong! Almost everything that the candidate organized in Jerusalem fuels the impression that he doesn’t want to try understanding how complicated the Middle East situation is. Instead, Romney paints the crisis region in black and white: Israel is good and the rest — the Palestinians and the mullahs in Iran — are lumped together.”
“This one-sided world view is less dumb than it is coldly calculated. Romney is soliciting campaign donations in Jerusalem (the minimum price for two plates at breakfast is $50,000.) And he is ensnaring Jewish voters at home.”
“The trip to Israel may help Romney in the short-term. But in the long-term the Republican has done damage. The Middle East needs the US as a mediator. As such, the presidential hopeful has already disqualified himself.”
The Blunder bus just rolls on and on. You have of course seen his latest gaffes in Israel and Poland.
I guess now that Emily Post is dead so are manners.
…and I thought George W. Bush was an unschooled utter fool in foreign diplomacy, but next to Romney and his entire entourage, Bush looks like a genius. God forbid!
Shaw, Der Spiegel nailed it. Thanks for the quote.
Demeur, Blunder bus, LOL. Best laugh of the day.
Jack, Bush wasn’t exactly unschooled. Uncle Dick and a cabal of neocon crackpot crusaders taught W. everything they wanted him to know. It was sort of like filling an empty wastebasket.