Mitt Romney flies to UK, immediately starts insulting the country

[Landslide Lyndon]

Is this guy White Rain's sock or what?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

WhyteRain is better at paragraphs.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Aside from the giant disaster this has been, I wonder what Romney was even trying to do. Obama's international tour in 2008 was obviously to promote restoring the US's image internationally which gave him a boost. Romney is just doing things that will alienate swing voters, plus he doesn't have the international following Obama did.

[ZuWo]

Don't get too excited over these incidents that are now called "gaffes". I am not a fan of Romney but let's be frank: the only thing that matters on election day is the economy and as long as the polls indicate that a very substantial number of voters (if not the majority!) think Romney is better than Obama when it comes to handling the economy, Romney is in a really good position.

[afleitch]

Don't get too excited over these incidents that are now called "gaffes". I am not a fan of Romney but let's be frank: the only thing that matters on election day is the economy and as long as the polls indicate that a very substantial number of voters (if not the majority!) think Romney is better than Obama when it comes to handling the economy, Romney is in a really good position.

Careful not to fall in to that trap; when it come to the economy voters tend to vote for who can assist them economically, not the wider economy itself. The two are often not linked and can often be opposed.

[ZuWo]

Don't get too excited over these incidents that are now called "gaffes". I am not a fan of Romney but let's be frank: the only thing that matters on election day is the economy and as long as the polls indicate that a very substantial number of voters (if not the majority!) think Romney is better than Obama when it comes to handling the economy, Romney is in a really good position.

Careful not to fall in to that trap; when it come to the economy voters tend to vote for who can assist them economically, not the wider economy itself. The two are often not linked and can often be opposed.

So let's rephrase my post in the following way: As long as a substantial number or even the majority of the voters think that Romney is better than Obama when it comes to creating jobs (which is the key priority of many voters in these times of economic uncertainty), Romney is in a really good position.

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

This guy! I wonder what insulting things he'll say in Poland and Israel next!

Trying to appear as relaxed, normal guy Mitt will tell some botched Polish jokes in Warsaw.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think a lot of this was merely the product of the notorious British press and not just that which concerns Romney. Cameron's words were apparently in response to a issue about subways and had nothing to do with Romney or Salt Lake City, according to CBS This Morning.

It was a mistake for Romney to answer as "an Olympics expert" rather than a Presidential candidate and as such some criticism is justified, but most of this is just unimportant, trivial nonesense.

[Old Europe]

SPIEGEL Online's headline was "Romney snubs the Britons" today.

[You kip if you want to...]

It says so much that Cameron has tried to keep their meeting under wraps. Footage from the Obama meet in 2008 was plastered into campaign videos, Labour and Conservative.

Don't forget 2008 was when Obama dubbed Cameron "a lightweight" as well when they met.

[You kip if you want to...]

"It's easier when you hold an Olympics in the middle on nowhere."
AHAHAHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, even David Cameron deserves a handshake for that!

Even Daily Mail (!!!) journos are declaring him "worse than Sarah Palin".

[You kip if you want to...]

This just gets better.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/27/mitt-romney-snubbed-by-uk-government-cameron-romneyshambles-olympics_n_1709198.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Politics

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Part of that article disagrees with what they said on CBS, again highlighting that some of this the rambunctiousness of the British press. In my opinion, most of this "coldness" is the result of the Conservatives reacting to the press as part of a political calculation so as to distance themselves from Romney's comments as they were sold and not as they actually were.

Beyond that the article is right when it points out that the Tories and the GOP have been moving away from each other at lightening speed this past decade on both foreign policy and on social issues. So it is not shocking for there to be sympathies for Obama, because on many fronts they are on the same page.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Beyond that the article is right when it points out that the Tories and the GOP have been moving away from each other at lightening speed this past decade on both foreign policy and on social issues. 

I guess that's part of the strategy to improve the "special relationship" that is so tarnished after four years of that anti-colonial Kenyan socialist Obama.

[pbrower2a]

Don't get too excited over these incidents that are now called "gaffes". I am not a fan of Romney but let's be frank: the only thing that matters on election day is the economy and as long as the polls indicate that a very substantial number of voters (if not the majority!) think Romney is better than Obama when it comes to handling the economy, Romney is in a really good position.

Major errors of fact or evidence of inadequate preparation for any challenge might suggest that Mitt Romney is unready to be President. If he bungles his way through Great Britain, then just think of how inept his diplomacy would be with a country less similar to the US (like Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, or Japan).

It's easy to dismiss President Obama as a quick study, but people who prove themselves quick studies on everything demonstrate flexibility and preparedness.

I don't like to predict imperfect analogues, but if Mitt Romney gets the UK so wrong, then what is his reliable strength? Maybe his claim to mastery of economic stewardship, long his apparent strength in contrast to President Obama, is more limited in value and relevance. If his mastery of foreign policy is suspect for factual weaknesses, then what sort of Commander in Chief will he be? We recently had a President whose military policy came largely from his gut instincts and desire for personal revenge, and look what that got us!

I'm not going to call a Romney collapse before I see it. It just looks far more possible. "Steady hand" trumps bungler on a national scale. The time for recovery from any serious gaffe is getting shorter every day.   

[WhyteRain]

To be honest all the things he said are true.

Shhhh..!   You're pricking the cocoon! 

[ajb]

To be honest all the things he said are true.

Shhhh..!   You're pricking the cocoon! 

The truth-value of Romney's comments isn't really at issue; the point is that Romney was rude and tactless while a guest in someone else's country. And in not just any country, but one where a member of Romney's team had, days earlier, bragged that Romney would be able to manage a "special relationship" much better than Obama has.

[WhyteRain]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/piers-morgan-defends-mitt-romneys-olympics-comments-he-was-just-speaking-the-truth/
Piers Morgan Defends Romney’s Olympics Comments: ‘He Was Just Speaking The Truth’
by Noah Rothman | 3:30 pm, July 26th, 2012

CNN host Piers Morgan appeared on his network with Brooke Baldwin on Thursday where he ... defended Romney’s comments saying that the presumptive Republican nominee was “absolutely right” to question whether the U.K. was ready for the Olympics.
 
Baldwin asked Morgan for his thought on Romney saying that he found London’s lack of security preparation for the Olympics “disconcerting.” Morgan said he thought Romney was correct.

“It’s no secret over here that for the last three weeks the security around the Olympics has been a shambles,” said Morgan. “The outside firm they got in to run it has been all over the place – they didn’t have enough people and the army had to be drafted in. So, Mitt Romney was only saying exactly what has been happening.”
 
“He’s run an Olympics, so I thought he was perfectly entitled to be critical,” Morgan continued. He said that the English press jumped on him because they wanted Romney to “talk us up a bit,” but the substance of Romney’s critique was on point.

“I thought it was a bit of a fuss about nothing,” said Morgan. “He was just speaking the truth which can sometimes be rather unpalatable.”

(Emphasis added.)

I know a lot of people are wondering if this could cost Morgan his MSM job, the way that NYT reporter lost his after exposing the Democrats for raising millions of illegal donations, mostly from China, in the 1996 campaign.  I don't think so.  Unlike Chinagate, this one isn't going to result in 100 witnesses fleeing the U.S. one step ahead of the law.

I'm still worried about that CBS reporter who's covering Fast & Furious while nearly all the rest of the MSM suppressed the news.  Being "screamed at" by top Obama Administration officials is no way to get ahead in the MSM.

[Keystone Phil]

...and I'm standing there, staring at them from across the room. Still happy with your pick, guys?

[argentarius]

At least people aren't talking about Bain, besides he's helping out conservative leaders big time.

[Senator Sbane]

Yeah, the biggest winners out of this seem to be the Tories. Distancing themselves from the Republicans and sticking close to Obama is a good strategy.

[ajb]

Another knee-jerk, bleeding-heart, liberal comments on Romneyshambles:

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/karl-rove-romney-blew-it-in-london-video.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I think it's more disgusting that "conservative" British politicians have treated an American visitor this rudely. Romney did not hurl insults--he offered a fair critique. Cameron was just as worried about the threat of strikes last week. The security problems have been obvious and did not arise simply because London is "in the middle of somewhere."

So all in all, it seems fair to suggest that anti-Americanism still exists across the world and that Obama really has only glossed over it. They like Obama for his charisma, skin colour, and "health care." Romney did little wrong, but their press has gobbled him up and spat him out because they've already decided they prefer Barack. That sure sounds fair.

[Supersonic]

I think it's more disgusting that "conservative" British politicians have treated an American visitor this rudely. Romney did not hurl insults--he offered a fair critique. Cameron was just as worried about the threat of strikes last week. The security problems have been obvious and did not arise simply because London is "in the middle of somewhere."

So all in all, it seems fair to suggest that anti-Americanism still exists across the world and that Obama really has only glossed over it. They like Obama for his charisma, skin colour, and "health care." Romney did little wrong, but they're press has gobbled him up and spat him out because they've already decided they prefer Barack. That sure sounds fair.

If you ask the average person on the street about Obama, nine times out of ten, one of those three reasons come up.

Though in terms of the press, you can't say the Telegraph and Daily Mail 'prefer Barack', the comment sections on both papers, as well as their columnists, often rave about Romney or at the very least moan about the Presidents 'ineptitude'. I believe its more a case of the right papers flaunting their 'patriotic values' by defending the London Olympics against a foreign critic.

[bgwah]

This thread has some of the worst spin I've ever seen posted on this forum...