Here’s The New Mitt Romney “Gaffe” You’re Supposed To Care About

July 27, 2012 | Filed under 2012 Presidential Race,Mitt Romney | Posted by

The Andrew Sullivan’s of the world want you to believe this is some sort of horrendous international incident that blogs and news outlets on the right are furiously trying to bury.

Compare this…

London’s security preparations had been called into question in comments by Republican candidate Romney, who is in London to attend the opening ceremony on Friday.

Romney said several issues in the build-up to the Games had been “disconcerting”, focusing on a fiasco involving private security contractor G4S which has failed to provide the number of private guards it had promised.

“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,” he told NBC News on Wednesday.

It was “hard to know just how well it will turn out”, Romney added.

With this from ten days ago:

By the way I could have picked from any of several thousands of other articles about the G4S fiasco. Two weeks ago it was all over cable news and the internet.

In a parliamentary hearing broadcast live in Britain, the chief executive of the G4S acknowledged Tuesday that his company’s failure to hire enough Olympic security guards has turned into a nationwide embarrassment. It also has pushed the company from the big stage to a big loss — one that might be felt long after the Summer Olympics that start July 27 and end Aug. 12.

Britain’s government will deploy an additional 3,500 servicemen at the games after G4S failed to recruit all of the 10,400 private security guards it had promised that would protect 100 Olympic-related venues. Extra police officers have also been called in to help.

G4S chief executive Nick Buckles made a groveling apology as he was questioned by angry British lawmakers.

“It’s a humiliating shambles for the country, isn’t it?” asked Labour lawmaker David Winnick.

“I cannot disagree with you,” Buckles said.

Oh no, Mitt Romney was candid and truthful in his comments about the London Olympics this week and was commenting as someone who had previously organized an Olympic Games. Stop the presses…

For die-hard Obama supporters I guess I can see how something like truth would make them feel uneasy; their world turned upside down.

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Posted by on July 27, 2012.
Filed under 2012 Presidential Race, Mitt Romney.
Tagged with: • .
Doug Johnson is a news junkie and long time blog reader, turned author.

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  • Commander_Chico

    Look, when you take a trip abroad to burnish your foreign policy credentials, and the (Conservative Party) Prime Minister and the Mayor of the capital city of the USA’s closest ally are ripping you in public because of your gaffes, and the people and press of that country are calling you #AmericanBorat it’s a massive FAIL.

    Whatever the truth of what he said, this is a case where perception is reality. It’s called “diplomacy.” It’s not the American liberal media, it’s the British press mocking and lambasting him, including the Murdoch-owned Times and The Sun calling him “Mitt the Twit.”

    Mitt managed to condescend to and offend the national pride of the UK in his short trip.

    What a buffoon. Epic fail.

    Mayor Boris in front of 60,000 Londoners:

    “There’s a guy named Mitt Romney . . . ”

    #Romneyshambles #AmericanBorat

    http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23AmericanBorat?q=%23AmericanBorat

    http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23romneyshambles

    • herddog505

      You have a point: it’s not exactly polite to say anything even remotely critical of one’s hosts whether it’s true or not.

      On the other, Mitt only said what everybody knows and, as Hank_M points out, there seems to be an (ahem) teensy-tiny bit of difference in the way Mitt is treated by the press and the way Barry has been.

      • Commander_Chico

        I am applying an objective test. If you go to a major ally, and you leave the head of government and the mayor of the largest city ripping you after you visit, you have failed.

        It’s not about the coverage of the event, it’s about what Cameron and Boris Johnson said. But the video of Boris (my favorite mayor) is news gold.

        This is on par with Romney’s strange obsession with Russia as an adversary – are they trolling for the votes of the moron 25% who don’t know the Iron Curtain is down, or are they really that dumb?

        What I think happened was a variation on the Peter Principle. Mitt ran an Olympics, so he could not keep himself from commenting on the running of another Olympics. That might have been Mitt’s highest and best use. He got through being Governor of Massachusetts by making deals with the corrupt speaker of the legislature and has been running for president since.

        • Cecil Bordages

          And sending back the bust of Churchill and giving the PM a set of DVD’s that couldn’t be played and giving the Queen and iPod pre-loaded with the O’s speeches were great moments in American diplomcy…Right?

          • jim_m

            Plus constantly calling the Falklands the Malvinas doesn’t help.

          • Vagabond661

            Obama and Netanyahu still haven’t friended each other on facebook.

          • jim_m

            The poles are waiting to see how obama will commemorate the 9/17/1939 anniversary of the Soviet invasion this time. They really appreciated how he sold out their defense a couple of years ago.

            So did the Czechs. There’s nothing like reminding your allies that you sold them out to murderous dictators once upon a time and that you have no problem with doing it all over again. Great alliance building competency obama has.

        • herddog505

          I’m not claiming that Mitt covered himself with glory. However, when compared with the fumbling of the individual presently occupying the Resolute desk, this pales to insignificance. It isn’t quite a manufactured gaffe, but it’s close.

          • Commander_Chico

            Obama is a mediocre but known quality. No glory, but no major f-ups on a Bush scale like Iraq and letting Bin Laden get away.

            Mitt’s mouthing off leads to concern he might start a war with Russia, if not the UK. His team is full of nutballs like Bolton.

          • herddog505

            Hmmm… Just about every four years, we are assured that the Republican nominee is a nutcase who wants to start a war. Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and now Romney leap to mind.

            I’m surprised that your half-century old cue cards are still legible.

            “Obama is a mediocre… quality.”

            Mediocre? That may qualify for the understatement of the month. It would be more accurate to say that he’s a stuttering clusterf*ck of a massive failure.

        • jim_m

          Give it up Chica. Mitt’s gaffe is minor compared to the multitude of real insults that obama has delivered to our now former allies world wide. There is a reason that countries like Germany and others are basically ignoring the US now. It’s because obama is a complete fool and in incompetent ass. He knows little to nothing of international relations and has an adolescent understanding of foreign policy that is more appropriate for a high school model UN exercise than it is for the real world.

          • Commander_Chico

            Romney’s posturing on Russia seems adolescent to me.

          • jim_m

            My criticism of obama is that his entire foreign policy world view is that of a 14 year old. It is insanely naive with regard to how nations relate to one another. The whole “reset button” fiasco is emblematic of a man who believes that every politician world wide is a peace loving altruist and that if only we talk nicely with each other we can usher in an era of international Utopia.

            The kind of interactions he has had more resemble a teenage understanding of national motivations and interactions. His foreign policy is very reflective of the understanding I had of the world when I was 14.

          • Commander_Chico

            Do you have anything specific to cite, or just want to rant, fact-free?

            Yes, Obama has not been the perfect president. I particularly disagree with his diplomatic and clandestine campaign to hand Syria over to Al Qaeda. The problem is that the worst things that Obama does, Romney wants to do even more and add things like beefing with Russia.

          • herddog505

            You hated America, thought that WE were the problem and believed that the key to a more peaceful world was a meek, kowtowing, disarmed United States when you were younger?

            When did you see the light?

            ;-)

          • jim_m

            When I went to college and got exposed to something other than the far left home I was raised in (Mother was a journalist and Father worked in an academic environment.)

          • herddog505

            Yeah, and we don’t want to upset them, they being such peaceful, nonaggressive, wouldn’t-harm-a-fly saints and all.

            A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.

            http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/05patrol.html?_r=1

            The U.S. Northern Command and joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said two Russian bombers violated U.S. airspace near Alaska during recent arctic war games.

            http://freebeacon.com/russia-violates-u-s-airspace/

            Russia plans to upgrade up to 85 percent of its strategic nuclear weapons and up to 70 percent of aerospace defense weapons by 2020. The government has earmarked 20 trillion rubles (about 600 billion U.S. dollars) for the massive re-armament program until 2020.

            http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-07/26/c_131741128.htm

            Along with financial reasons, [the decision to close Russia's base at Cahm Rahn Bay] was part of Putin’s bid to improve ties with the United States. But relations with Washington deteriorated and Putin, who was re-elected to a third term in March, has grown increasingly eager to challenge Washington. During his election campaign, he accused the U.S. of encouraging protest against his 12-year rule in order to weaken Russia, and pledged to strengthen the nation’s military might.

            http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2012/07/27/navy_chief_says_russia_wants_naval_bases_abroad/

            Instead of a “reset” button, what’s the Russian for “you’ve been punked!”?

          • Commander_Chico

            Wow, the Russian Navy and Air Force want to have bases around the world instead of the one – one they have now in Syria? That’s outrageous.

            Look, I remember the Soviet Union, played Chicken-of-the-Sea with Soviet AGIs, had Bears and Badgers fly really really low over my ship, saw the Soviet Med fleet ships anchored at Hammamet.

            First, a factual issue – The Beacon headline about “violating airspace” is inaccurate, misleading and propagandistic. The relevant quotes in the story are:

            “There was a single out-of-area patrol by two Russian 
long range bombers which entered the Alaska ADIZ that were visually 
identified by NORAD fighters,” John Cornelio, chief spokesman for Northcom, said in an email response to questions about the recent war games. . . .

            “NORAD continues to monitor and identify all flights approaching the Air 
Defense Identification Zone,” he said, noting that Russian jets observed international flight rules and their activities “were conducted in a professional manner.”
            “As is their right, the Russian Air Force continues to fly in international airspace,” Cornelio said.

            The ADIZ is not contiguous with sovereign US airspace, which is 12 miles out. The ADIZ is further out. Bears used to fly regular patrols from the Kola peninsula to Cuba which penetrated the US ADIZ – there are lots of pictures.

            So that is a bullshit story.

            As for submarines, there used to be patrol areas off the east and west coasts for Soviet Yankee, Delta and Typhoon ballistic missile subs. One mission by a couple of SSNs is not particularly alarming.

            The US Navy conducts freedom of navigation exercises all of the time – including near the Russian naval base on the Crimea.

            Nuclear weapons are limited by treaty, but just as the US upgrades its nukes and delivery systems, so must Russia. This is not a quantitative increase in power.

            Russia is not a superpower now, but it is a great power that deserves respect, not just for its power but for its huge increase in freedom relative to 1989. Moscow is now loaded with US and European brand names and while there are points of tension (in some cases caused by the USA, like with Syria) they are not the enemy Romney is painting them as. If they are, why are they helping us in Afghanistan?

          • herddog505

            I’m not especially concerned with legal niceties, nor do I care about what the Russians USED to do as an excuse for their present behavior (or shall we send cruisers to pray on British shipping as we did at one time, too?). When I see them reverting back to Cold War practices – even on a small scale – I think that I may be forgiven for suspecting that they aren’t our BFF’s, and thinking that other people who take a similar view are neither raving paranoids nor warmongers.

            Further, they are doing this on BARRY’s watch. Here he had the whole reset button and speeches about how buddy-buddy we are (in fairness, Bush did the same sort of thing), yet they are behaving provocatively. It inclines me to think that kissing their a** really doesn’t help our relationship that much. To borrow from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Putin is a six-cylinder Moscow-trained KGB hood, and thinking that he’ll play nice because we do is about as foolish a view as anybody outside a nuthouse could take.

          • Commander_Chico

            “Legal niceties?” Do you forget that Siberia is right next to Russia?

            Here is a map of the ADIZ for Alaska. It does not surprise or alarm me that Russians might be flying there:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alaskan_ADIZ.jpg

            Putin is a nationalist who wants to assert Russian power and aggrandize himself. It only plays into his hands when some dolt like Romney says Russia is the US’s “number-one geopolitical foe.”

            We won the Cold War. Get over it.

          • herddog505

            Tell that to Vlad, our friendly, lovable, harmless Russian nationalist.

            While you’re at it, hop into the Wayback Machine and have a chat with FDR in, oh, ’37 or ’38. Tell him that he needn’t worry about Schickelgruber: “We won the Great War. Get over it.”

          • Commander_Chico

            Again, Vlad is helping us in Afghanistan.

          • herddog505

            He is, is he?

            Many in the West feel that China and Russia should be contributing more to stability in Afghanistan. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle plans to demand more from Beijing and Moscow at a conference starting Thursday in Kabul. But he’ll likely get little more than empty promises.

            http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-calls-for-greater-chinese-and-russian-contribution-to-afghanistan-a-838831.html#ref=rss

            Some in NATO have been trying to get more Russian help for years. That has come with (shall we say?) conditions, such as putting the brakes on NATO expansion or BMD.

            http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/russia-raises-its-price-to-rescue-nato-from-afghan-quagmire-2118458.html

            Further, I suggest that Moscow might have other less-than-altruistic motives in attempting to gain influence in a country that it invaded not so long ago.

          • Commander_Chico

            Much of the supplies for NATO in Afghanistan have been passing through Russia. If they had shut that off, especially when the Pakis closed their border, it would have put NATO in the hurt. The fact that they don’t want to contribute themselves might just be prudent.

            Also no country has purely altruistic motives in intervening in other countries, including the USA in Afghanistan.

          • herddog505

            Well, I guess you take what you can get.

          • Commander_Chico

            “Number one geopolitical foe??” Is that needless belligerence to Russia, or ass-kissing the Chinese and/or Saudis?

            Better he keeps his mouth shut. Unfortunately, speaking is part of the job of being president.

            I’m looking forward to seeing his nose up Bibi’s ass.

      • Rance Frayger

        I doubt that Romney lost any votes by rankling the Brits. However, if he manages to provoke the Israelis, that might hurt him with certain voting blocks here.

    • Vagabond661

      It’s not like he gave Gordon Brown bunch of DVDs that won’t play on their system. That was epic fail.

      • jim_m

        Not to mention that Brown is visually impaired so he probably couldn’t watch them regardless.

    • jim_m

      Wow, Chico, for a guy who has spent the last 6+ months saying that he’s not an obama supporter you do a really good impersonation of one. Excuse me if I don’t believe your BS that you won’t be voting for Barry.

      • Commander_Chico

        Romney is a twat, how could I vote for him? I’m voting for Gary Johnson.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ryan-Murphy/100001624276605 Ryan Murphy

          In other words, for Obama.

        • jim_m

          Yourvote is nothing less than an excuse to support obama while providing yourself an excuse to claim that you opposed him for his many failures.

          You don’t want to really oppose him in a meaningful way. You just want to pose as being against obama’s failures without risking having him lose the election.

          As the election approaches your criticisms of Romney get louder and more frequent and more resembling the BS narrative coming from Media matters and your criticism of obama is relegated to vagueries like, “He’s a war monger” and “He’s a tool of the ‘oligarchy’” (the latter of which is comic in its paranoia).

  • Hank_M

    So Mitt shows he knows what he’s talking about, knows some of the problems about
    security staffing at the Olympics, and talks about it and that is suppose to be a gaffe?

    Right!

    I guess he should have bowed, apologized for the US being the US, mouthed a bunch of meaningless rhetoric, screw up a toast to the Queen and finish by getting the date wrong in the guest book at Westminster Abbey. Then the media could marvel at how smart and cool he was.

  • Guest

    What Chico said about “diplomacy.” You don’t go to your friend’s house and promptly complain that the curtains are ugly. It’s just rude.

    I’m not particularly offended or unoffended here, but I am rather enjoying the spectacle of English politicians and press pummeling the presumptive presidential nominee.

    • herddog505

      Yes, quite a change from when foreigners were treating a nominee like a rockstar and giving him Nobels for what they thought he MIGHT do.

    • jim_m

      Even Piers Morgan is saying that Romney was correct. When you lose CNN on the narrative you aren’t getting anywhere with it.

  • 914

    Mitt didn’t build that gaffe, somebody else did that..

  • LiberalNightmare

    Yeah! What the hell does romny know about staging an Olympics anyway?

    • http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

      More than I do, certainly.

      Oh, wait – that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?

      Never mind…

  • sabbahillel

    Reading what Romney said, it sounds as if it was a specific reply to a question about the security fiasco. Does anyone have the context to show the question that Romney was answering?

  • Owen007

    How dare Mitt Romney say what everyone that followed the London Olympics nonsense was actually thinking!

    Yeah, but I’m sure this’ll be more important than, say, the economy or unemployment numbers. ;)

  • LiberalNightmare

    First of all, he didn’t say that. He was taken out of context, Second, its racist to say that he did say that!

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