Romney's Battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

To read the press, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has been one of the most luckless and lackluster in recent memory.  That's saying a lot because memory includes such infamous losers as John McCain, Bob Dole and Michael Dukakis.

We could insert a snide remark about the media's liberal bias, but that's not applicable here: many conservative outlets are wringing their hands in dismay at Mitt Romney's failure to successfully engage with a president who, by all normal measures, should be without a prayer.  It's enough to drive a conservative to despair.

Are you sure, though?  In the last week, something peculiar has happened, which once again was noticed primarily by foreign observers.  Mitt Romney has been speaking plain, unvarnished truths - truths so obvious and beyond dispute as to fall into the realm of common sense and conventional wisdom - yet the media has loudly portrayed those selfsame truths as candidacy-destroying gaffes.

Truth

First and perhaps most notoriously, Mitt Romney was shown in a "secret video" pointing out that 47% of Americans don't pay income taxes and that the Democratic party has a lock on about 47% of the electorate who will vote Democrat "no matter what."  Therefore, quoth Mitt:

And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like.

How is this a gaffe?  If you are running for office and there is a certain category of people who will never, never vote for you... you don't worry about them.  Instead of wasting time or money on them, you concentrate on those who might possibly be persuaded of your merits.  Duh!

Do Republicans go to Hollywood to try to raise funds from Barbra Streisand and Michael Moore?  Do Democrats ask for a platform at Bob Jones University?  Of course not, and no sane person would expect them to.

Everyone knows that Democrats are for more government spending and Republicans for less; if you personally sustain your livelihood from government spending, obviously you're going to be heavily in favor of Mr. Obama.  He's your meal ticket until the sky falls!

Even the leftist fact-checkers had to admit that Mitt's statistics were accurate.  They quibbled with his conclusions, of course, even though to anyone else they would be simple common sense.

As it happens, we don't fully agree with him - of that 47% of government dependents, there are a few who resent having to be dependent and might vote for someone who offered hope of getting out of it.  But his facts as stated, and the gist of his point, are beyond dispute.

The media sees a gross insult to all Americans because that's what they want to see.  It's far from certain that all Americans will see it that way: to be specific, the 53% of Americans who do pay income taxes are well aware of the 47% who don't and may like a candidate who understands the burden they have been forced to bear.

The more the media tries to portray Romney as the champion of the productive... well, in a nation with massive unemployment and little hope for the future, there are worse things to be associated with than productivity.

Justice

Like terrorists, for example.  The conflict between Israel and its Muslim enemies has gone on for so long it's become a sick joke.  For almost as long, the world's media have presented the two sides as morally equivalent: Israel bombs some Palestinians, the Palestinians blow up some Jews, and since Israel is better equipped that makes the Palestinians the victims.

Except that it's not so.  Aside from the clear moral distinction between targeting known murderers vs slaughtering random teenagers in a nightclub, Israel has offered the Palestinians a state every few years for a half century and the Palestinians have rejected it every time.  Israel fully subscribes to the two-state idea and wants peace; the Palestinians have been offered peace and their own state but incessantly and violently turn it down.

What's the logical conclusion?  Mitt Romney observes:

I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way. And so what you do is you say you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that it's going to remain an unsolved problem.

Again: Duh!  The Palestinians' flag, logo, and official maps deny any such thing as Israel; how can you have peace with someone who doesn't agree that you have a right to exist?  You can't, and finally, finally, Mitt Romney has come out and said what should be crystal-clear to any rational person with the brains God gave geese:  there is not going to be peace in the Middle East and we should stop wasting our time worrying about it.

How can we justly forcing a peace-loving nation to keep giving, and giving, and giving to enemies sworn to its destruction?

I have to tell ya, the idea of pushing on the Israelis?—to give something up, to get the Palestinians to act, is the worst idea in the world. We have done that time and time and time again. It does not work. So, the only answer is show your strength.

Even Israel forgets this plain fact from time to time, so it's understandable that far-safer America also forgets.  It reflects well on Mitt Romney that he can see reality when it stares him in the face and even verbalize it in a halfway-understandable fashion.

Again, the more the media trumpets this "gaffe," the more Americans will understand that, hey, here's a guy who actually knows which end is up!

The American Way

When our TV screens were filled with images of our ambassadors and embassy staff being dragged through the streets and murdered by vicious Muslim mobs, it's absurd to expect a candidate for President to have nothing to say on the subject.  This was Mr. Romney's contribution:

It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Note that Mitt didn't say that Mr. Obama himself had said or done anything.  He hadn't - he was too busy attending a Las Vegas fundraiser to even get briefed on the topic.  But the State Department is part of the Obama Administration, and it's response was exactly as Mr. Romney characterized it:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.

How about, "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the attempts by misguided individuals to try to kill those of us who work in the Embassy of the United States in Cairo"?  These government-funded losers are so pathetic they can't even condemn their own attempted murderers!  What sort of America do they represent, anyway?

There was a time when the American Way of war and peace was clear and widely known:  Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.  In the early years of this nation when we really couldn't afford it, we created a Navy and Marine Corp for the express purpose of trashing Muslim barbarians on the other side of the world who wouldn't leave our ships alone.  This effort proved to be well worthwhile: for the century and a half following, Muslim barbarians pretty much left us alone.  Only since the 1970s, when we demonstrated that we were no longer willing to smack our enemies with a big stick, has the Islamic world been causing us problems.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would know exactly how to deal with this problem.  Ronald Reagan knew exactly what to do in this situation too: send in the Navy with its biggest guns.  Mitt Romney is not saying anything that would not have been said by any American president of any party until 1976.

In telling our enemies "Thank you sir, may I have another?" it's Barack Obama who's departing from the American Way, and he's the one whose actions should be shocking and disqualifying.  Once again, the media doesn't understand this, but many Americans will.

The Man of Steel?

Our older readers may possibly recognize the source of our title - from a character who once symbolized all that was good and decent about America, but who in recent years has been retooled as a United Nations metrosexual.  The traditional Superman was nothing more than a fictional comic-book character, relevant in the real world only as a symbol and inspiration.

Nobody would ever mistake Mitt Romney for Superman, unlike what seems to happen regularly with our current President.  But if he's really willing to fight for truth, justice, and the American way, and actually to call out our enemies for what they truly are, President Romney will turn out to be a worthy substitute for the Man of Steel.