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Afternoon Open Thread: Senate Candidate Rep. Todd Akin Pontificates on Libya and President Obama

Posted: September 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: , , |62 Comments »

Raw Story:

Embattled Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) on Wednesday reacted to the death of a U.S. ambassador in Libya by accusing President Barack Obama of not liking the very country he is leading….

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday had used the death of Stevens to score political points by accusing Obama of “sympathizing” with the enemy after the U.S. embassy in Libya released a statement condemning the anti-Muslim film.

“First of all, apologizing to all people, [to] a lot of countries who are enemies, and apologizing to them and everything,” Akin said during a campaign stop in Kansas City, according to KMBC. “You know, if we did something wrong that’s one thing, but he’s just apologizing because he didn’t like America? I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”

This ignoramus and others like him are making life and death decisions that affect all of us. And the reporter doesn’t even explain that Obama didn’t “apologize” for anything or express dislike for the United States.

Stop the world, I wanna get off!

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62 Comments on “Afternoon Open Thread: Senate Candidate Rep. Todd Akin Pontificates on Libya and President Obama”

  1. RalphB says:
    September 13, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    Romney must know better and just be a craven asshat. Sadly, this guy is probably ignorant enough to really believe his own bullshit. It’s kind of frightening.

  2. bostonboomer says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    MSNBC is hyping a new poll coming out tonight. It sounds like Obama must be way up in some swing states. One is Florida, I think.

  3. bostonboomer says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    New Elizabeth Warren ad: The Fighter.

  4. bostonboomer says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    Romney calls for more wars.

    “This president has done something I find very hard to understand. Ever since FDR we’ve had the capacity to be engaged in two conflicts at once. And he’s saying, ‘no we’re going to cut that back to only one conflict,’” Romney said, hitting Obama again on the congressionally-backed military cuts set to kick in this January.

    Romney said as president he would “restore our military commitment.”

    “The world needs American leadership. The Middle East needs American leadership,” he said. “And I intend to be a President that provides the leadership that America respects and will keep us admired throughout the world.”

    • RalphB says:
      September 13, 2012 at 5:24 pm

      The longer he goes on like this, I wonder whose vote he wants? He’ll get the real Obama haters anyway and this shouldn’t appeal to anyone else. I hope?

      • bostonboomer says:
        September 13, 2012 at 5:26 pm

        He’s trying to get every possible white wingnut vote. The base is about all he has going for him. I guess he didn’t notice that the RNC audience cheered when Eastwood said we should get out of Afghanistan.

      • bostonboomer says:
        September 13, 2012 at 5:29 pm

        Check this out. Romney didn’t draw many people in VA today.

        A Romney campaign staffer told The Hill that it expected between 5,000 and 10,000 people at the rally in the pivotal region. Afterwards another staffer said only 2,700 people had shown up after 5,000 tickets had been distributed. That’s a big drop from a rally Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sarah Palin held in the same park four years ago this week, which drew approximately 20,000 people.

        That’s not a good sign for voter enthusiasm in region that Romney admitted “could very well determine who the next president is.”

      • RalphB says:
        September 13, 2012 at 5:49 pm

        Low attendance for Romney is good news for us! Hooray.

      • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        September 13, 2012 at 10:40 pm

        Is he channeling Cheney now?

    • janey says:
      September 13, 2012 at 7:50 pm

      All these idiots are still fighting WWII. They tell themselves that ‘we won WWII’ !! one thing they don’t understand is that the US did not win WWII. We had a lot of help. Hitler shot himself in the foot by trying to kill all the Jews and invade Russia. Some Germans were too busy looting Europe to actually fight a war. Need I go on?

    • NW Luna says:
      September 13, 2012 at 10:11 pm

      I didn’t think Romney could get any scarier, but he just did.

    • NW Luna says:
      September 13, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      Romney’s “military commitment” = more wars = more American sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, killed for senseless conflicts.

      I think the American public can figure that out.

  5. RalphB says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Romney’s condemnation of U.S. diplomats over the Mohammed movie is a betrayal of free speech

    Embassy Row

    Mitt Romney says the U.S. Embassy in Cairo has betrayed “American values.” He’s wrong. The embassy is standing for American values. It’s Romney who’s betraying them.

    The fight began brewing Tuesday morning as Egyptian protesters gathered outside the embassy. They were furious at a sophomoric American-made movie that ridiculed the prophet Mohammed. In response, the embassy issued a statement saying that it “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” The statement added: “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

    For the next several hours, the embassy used its Twitter feed to answer questions and objections. “We condemn this effort [by] misguided in[div]iduals to abuse universal right of free speech,” the embassy told a Muslim inquirer. Minutes later, it affirmed, “Freedom of speech is a universal human right, but that will not stop us from condemning misguided, uninformed actions.” When a Christian Tea Party activist asked, “Why are you condemning the 1st amendment rights of US Citizens?” the embassy replied that “we’re not condemning rights, we’re criticizing specific statements, a right guaranteed by freedom of expression.”

    • RalphB says:
      September 13, 2012 at 5:33 pm

      Snap!

      What made Romney’s statement and press conference disturbing, however, was his repeated use of the words sympathize and apology to conflate three issues the Cairo embassy had carefully separated: bigotry, free speech, and violence. The embassy had stipulated that expressions of bigotry, while wrong, were protected by freedom of speech and didn’t warrant retaliatory violence. Romney, by accusing the embassy of “sympathizing with those who had breached” the compound, equated moral criticism of the Mohammed movie with support for violence. In so doing, Romney embraced the illiberal Islamist mindset that led to the embassy invasion: To declare a movie offensive is to authorize its suppression.

      “The Embassy of the United States issued what appeared to be an apology for American principles,” Romney asserted at the press conference. “It’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values. … An apology for America’s values is never the right course.” Lest anyone miss his buzzwords, Romney called the embassy’s comments “a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for American values.”

      What, exactly, does Romney mean by “American values”? The embassy never apologized for free speech or diplomatic sovereignty. The only American offense it criticized was the movie’s “bigotry” and “efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” Does Romney regard this criticism as an “apology for American values”? Is bigotry an American value? Is it weak or un-American to repudiate slurs against Muslims?

      I don’t know where you were born, Mr. Romney (just kidding!), but where I come from, there’s nothing more American than recognizing the idiocy of a man’s views and, at the same time, his right to express them. If you can’t tell the difference between those two things, the main threat to our values right now isn’t President Obama, the Egyptians, the Libyans, or our diplomats in Cairo. It’s you.

    • bostonboomer says:
      September 13, 2012 at 5:34 pm

      Exactly:

      Romney, by accusing the embassy of “sympathizing with those who had breached” the compound, equated moral criticism of the Mohammed movie with support for violence. In so doing, Romney embraced the illiberal Islamist mindset that led to the embassy invasion: To declare a movie offensive is to authorize its suppression.

  6. bostonboomer says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    New NBC polls: Obama up in Ohio by 7, Florida by 5, and Virginia by 5 in likely voters.

    Among a larger pool of registered voters, Obama’s advantage over Romney slightly increases to 7 points in Virginia, 8 in Florida and 9 in Ohio.

    • RalphB says:
      September 13, 2012 at 5:50 pm

      Oh, keep ‘em coming. I love these kind of polls.

      • bostonboomer says:
        September 13, 2012 at 6:19 pm

        Those interviews were conducted BEFORE Romney’s major meltdown!

        • dakinikat says:
          September 13, 2012 at 6:41 pm

          Obama’s now polling better for the economy than Romney …

          Well, we now have four national polls that show Obama and Romney tied on the question — perhaps suggesting a potentially signfiicant shift in the race’s dynamics:

          * The new Fox News poll shows Obama and Romney exactly tied at 46-46 on who would better improve the economy and create jobs.

          * This week’s CNN poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 50-49, on who would better handle the economy.

          * This week’s Post poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 47-45, on the same question.

          * A Rasmussen poll on Tuesday found Obama and Romney at 47-45 on who is more trusted on job creation.

          • dakinikat says:
            September 13, 2012 at 6:49 pm

            * No, voters have not concluded Obama failed: Indeed, here’s more confirmation of the above. Nate Cohn ferrets out other crucial findings in the Fox poll :

            Just 36 percent of voters give Obama a D or an F on the economy, compared to 38 percent of voters who give him an A or a B. There are a lot of voters with a decidedly mixed view, including 14 percent who give him a “C” and 11 percent who give him an “incomplete,” as the president did himself. …

            50 percent of likely voters say that if Obama is elected, they would feel that “the country’s improving and I look forward to another 4 years” compared to 43 percent who would say “the country’s going down the drain and I’m dreading what is going to happen next.”…

            Collectively, these figures are terrible news for the Romney campaign. They have always claimed that their path to victory depended on voters resolving to dismiss the president on the grounds that his economic performance is a resounding failure, but voters appear to be drawing a different conclusion.

            Exactly. As I’ve been arguing, this may be the key to understanding this election.

            * No, there was no “apology” in the Cairo statement: Post fact checker Glenn Kessler takes apart the argument made by Romney and conservatives that the U.S. Embassy statement “apologized” for anything. There is a great deal of whining today on the right that the media unfairly focused on Romney yesterday, rather than the causes of the event itself. Let me make a suggestion: Perhaps the media saw Romney’s comments as newsworthy because he accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with attackers of U.S. Embassies?

          • dakinikat says:
            September 13, 2012 at 7:38 pm

            I think the FOMC made their votes for president obvious too:

            Tory Capital Econ. ‏@torycapital

            Fed Implements QE3, Ben Bernanke “Gets To Work”: Is The “Romney Rally” Over? http://ow.ly/1mrka3

            Mitt Romney stated he would fire Ben Bernanke and we wrote: In a rare move that could backfire for the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney stated he would not give Ben Bernanke a second term. While we won’t argue whether Ben Bernanke may deserve a second term, Romney may want to keep the economy as his main focus and not the Fed Chairman whose term will expire in January 2014. Romney’s comments could cause Ben Bernanke to, in an ‘apolitical’ way, – decide to move forward on QE3 because he’s got nothing to lose.

            see “Stocks Fall As Investors Reinterpret August-September 2012 QE3 Likelihood, Romney Says Bye-Bye Ben Bernanke:”

      • RalphB says:
        September 13, 2012 at 6:47 pm

        If Romney doesn’t take at least 2 of those states, he can’t really get to 270. And he might not get there anyway. He’s got a narrow path and demographics are gonna kill them in the future.

        • dakinikat says:
          September 13, 2012 at 7:34 pm

          If this film was supposed to cause a “September/October” surprise then you have to wonder what else they may do in desperation since it backfired so badly. I’m reading the Romney team is trying to blame the press for his ‘smirks’ now. The dude is so stupid he didn’t realize how badly this would go for him. There’s no path to victory so you wonder what the NEOcons will cook up now.

          • dakinikat says:
            September 13, 2012 at 7:36 pm

            Here’s a good question too:

            Michael Schaffer ‏@michaelschaffer

            For under-45s, Jimmy Carter has been that nice man who builds houses ever since we were in preteens. How effective a GOP bogey can he be?

    • RalphB says:
      September 13, 2012 at 6:29 pm

      That makes it even better!

    • RalphB says:
      September 13, 2012 at 7:04 pm

      Obama leads in Florida 49-44 with likely voters. This is giving me happy feet. :-)

      Marist: 9/13: Obama with Advantage Over Romney in Florida

  7. RalphB says:
    September 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    Federal authorities are investigating this so-called movie.

    Feds ID California man’s role in anti-Islam film

  8. pdgrey says:
    September 13, 2012 at 7:07 pm

    does this just piss you off? First what his tax rate is and then HE gets to go before Congress.
    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/13/843341/romney-hamm-taxes/

  9. HT says:
    September 13, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    Just watched that Akin clip and I have only one question. what rock do these people climb out from under, and is it legal to blast that rock to oblivion?
    good to hear about the poll results, perhaps the public is finally waking up?

    • dakinikat says:
      September 13, 2012 at 8:42 pm

      Here’s more jerks …

      Eric Boehlert ‏@EricBoehlert

      awful, awful people…….@mmfa: Fox Nation Suggests Obama Doesn’t Care About Deaths Of Diplomats In Libya; http://bit.ly/SiDn2A

      Obama and Hillary were not the ones smirking at their press conference.

      • HT says:
        September 13, 2012 at 8:51 pm

        Dear Gaia, they’ve escaped the rock and are infecting the world. Where do these people come from? Politics is not a game – it affects everyone in every country. It’s not a recess period gameupmanship in the schoolyard. What is wrong with these people that they do not examine their own words and their own motives before they send them out over the internet? I’m beginning to believe that most of this sheite comes from puberty level boys and girls who want to be the kewl kids, because that is the level of communication these days. (BTW, my kids explained about the atrocious spelling of cool – bastardised to “kewl”. why I don’t know. Idiocracy, here we come, full blast.

      • bostonboomer says:
        September 13, 2012 at 8:54 pm

        Pretty soon my jaw is going to be permanently hanging open.

      • Fannie says:
        September 13, 2012 at 9:02 pm

        Indeed the jerks are out “discussing” supposed facts like, Obama and Hillary was forewarned about the attack and they did nothing………………..they have more fucking angles and stinky fingers than anyone.

      • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        September 13, 2012 at 10:47 pm

        Obama and Hillary were not the ones smirking at their press conference.

        Exactly!

    • Seriously says:
      September 13, 2012 at 9:28 pm

      They’re also trying to make an issue of our Ambassador to Egypt supposedly refusing to allow the Marines to carry live ammo. I mean, if they lack basic common sense, just imagine what would happen if some embassy in the US started shooting at protestors to get a bead on why a firefight against rock throwers in the streets of Cairo is quite possibly the lack effing thing we need and could sort of have bad consequences. Jeebus! The Ambassador should get a medal for bravery and for not being completely insane.

      • RalphB says:
        September 13, 2012 at 9:47 pm

        Marines are not generally a group of undisciplined kids. Those reports of no ammo were from some “marine” blogs which I’m sure are as reliable as redstate.

        A Marine spokesperson at the Pentagon denied reports that U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition in a statement to Fox News Thursday.

        Pentagon Lt. Col. Chris Hughes told the outlet: “The ambassador and RSO (Regional Security Officer) have been completely and appropriately engaged with the security situation. No restrictions on weapons or weapons status have been imposed. This information comes from the Det Commander at AMEMB (American Embassy) Cairo.”

      • Seriously says:
        September 13, 2012 at 10:14 pm

        Of course not, I didn’t mean to imply at all that the Marines are undisciplined kids, but it can sometimes only take one minor incident or accident to spark off a completely unanticipated chain reaction in a pressurized situation. I’m sure our officials are taking all necessary precautions in order to keep everyone safe, it’s horrendous to be impuing their motives and attacking them for bogus political reasons.

  10. bostonboomer says:
    September 13, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    Joe Scarborough plans to run for president?!

    http://www.salon.com/2012/09/11/morning_joe_for_president/

  11. Pat Johnson says:
    September 13, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    Wow! Thanks to BostonBoomer for following this event from start to finish today. Great job for someone like me who is too lazy to search for links when I know I can find right here!

    As for Romney, he may soon join the Red Sox (ignore my tears here) for having secured the title of “last place” finish in the race for POTUS.

    What will be driving nail in his coffin will be the upcoming debates. He won’t have a let to stand on.

  12. RalphB says:
    September 13, 2012 at 9:56 pm

    Wonder if we can expect to see this from Rmoney or his white supremacists soon?

    Just throwing it out there…

    It seems that Rush Limbaugh Fat Bastard has uncovered the secret agenda of the Kenyan usurper and his alliance with al-Qaida:

  13. NW Luna says:
    September 13, 2012 at 10:15 pm

    We are in dire need of a minimum-intelligence test for all Congressional and POTUS candidates.

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