Mitt Romney had a strong response to Barack Obama’s latest “silver spoon” class warfare attack, as related by the Washington Post:
“I’m certainly not going to apologize for my dad and his success in life,” Romney said on “Fox & Friends.” “He was born poor. He worked his way to become very successful despite the fact that he didn’t have a college degree, and one of the things he wanted to do was provide for me and for my brother and sisters.”
The former Massachusetts governor, added: “The president likes to attack fellow Americans. He’s always looking for a scapegoat, particularly those [who] have been successful like my dad, and I’m not going to rise to that,” Romney said. “This is a time to solve problems. This is not a time for us to be attacking people. We should be attacking problems.”
(Emphasis mine.) ABC News adds some helpful background:
Romney speaks frequently on the trail about his father’s humble upbringing. Born in Mexico, George Romney eventually moved to the United States where he was a lath and plaster apprentice who would sell paint out of the trunk of car to make extra money, according to Romney.
George Romney went on to become a successful businessman, becoming the head of American Motors Corp. and later serving as the governor of Michigan from 1969 to 1973.
And while Romney inherited much of his father’s fortune when he died, he did not keep it, instead donating it to charity.
It’s funny that you don’t hear those details until Romney brings them up… and encouraging that the Romney campaign appears to understand how this little game is played. The previous Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, spent far too much time staring at media referees on the sidelines, and waiting for them to throw yellow flags that never came.
Romney’s comment about Obama’s penchant for attacking fellow Americans is right on target, and something anyone who might vote Obama back into office should consider. This President already has an enormous enemies list, and it’s going to get much worse if he scores a second, lame-duck term. Even leaving his political enemies aside, he’s already declared war on people who make over $200,000, big corporations (except for the ones he subsidizes), anyone who opposes tax increases, anyone who supports spending cuts, ATM manufacturers, corporate jet owners, financial institutions (except for those who contribute to his campaign), hedge fund managers, oil speculators, the Supreme Court, Boeing, and the coal industry. His surrogates have gone after stay-at-home moms, and people who transport their pets in certain ways.
Obama brings a nasty and desperate edge to this perpetual warfare, but it’s part of the package under any leadership when the State grows beyond a certain size. One of the essential skills of any political animal, including the top people in massive unelected bureaucracies, is the ability to escape blame. That means the hunt for scapegoats never ends.
You’re never going to see Big Government executives admitting that they’ve made horrible mistakes, or roll back massive programs that were launched in error. Even a modest admission of poor judgment or concession of failure, when working on a trillion-dollar scale, would be fatal to a political career. No government agency ever “wins” the War on Whatever, because that would make it redundant, and spell its doom… but no agency will ever admit it has lost its war, either. Growth requires a constant state of blameless failure, in which poor or counter-productive results are signs that efforts must be redoubled, and then redoubled again.
Look at the “green energy” disaster. You’re not getting any humble apologies, much less offers of disgraced resignation, from the President who wasted hundreds of billions of dollars of our money on these nightmares. On the contrary, he says it’s time to “double down!” The horrific consequences of his ideology don’t indicate a fatal collision with reality. They just mean reality is being unexpectedly stubborn, and must be pummeled into submission with fresh bags of cash.
Nothing is learned from these epic failures, and no responsibility is ever taken. Instead, a new repository for shifted blame is sought. When political enemies cannot be plausibly accused, what remains of the private sector will inevitably be brought under the gun. Remember how stunned the corporate jet industry was, when Obama repeatedly singled them out for condemnation? Your turn, oil speculators!
In a State-controlled economy, we will all be made to fight for our sustenance. Those who would steal away the favor of our mighty and benevolent rulers are your enemies. Of course your “friends” in Washington will be happy to target them for you. This always gets worse as the government gets bigger. Eventually, it gets brutal.
