Political Irony

© Jim Morin
Are Muslims too easily incited to violence? There’s an interesting editorial in the Washington Post titled “Why is the Arab world so easily offended?”

Let’s ignore for the moment whether violence is ever justified. I believe in this particular case the violence is definitely not justified (mainly because it won’t do any good and will almost certainly hurt them more than anyone they are protesting against). But I also don’t think that the stupid movie is the only thing they are upset about. To coin a bad phrase, it is just the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. Don’t pretend like they don’t have anything to be upset about (cough, Iraq). How should they react?

UPDATE: AlterNet points out that the author of the Washington Post editorial may not be the best person to give us a Muslim perspective.

We are starting to learn more about the (so-called) film that caused all the fuss in Islamic countries. I say so-called, because it seems to be impossible to actually see the film. Most people haven’t even watched the 14 minute trailer (and for good reason).

It turns out that the actors who were hired to make the film had no idea they were making an anti-Islam movie. They were told they were making an “Arabian desert adventure movie” starring someone named George who is a “warrior leader”. In fact, most of the attacks against Islam were dubbed over in post-production, and you can clearly tell the actor’s voice changes. Needless to say, the actors involved are very upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer.

And just who made this film? Early reports said it was an Israeli named “Sam Bacile” but there doesn’t seem to be anyone by that name. Instead, it appears to have been made by an Egyptian Christian living in Los Angeles, who is on probation for bank fraud.

The spokesperson for the film is Steve Klein, who is associated with two hate groups. He’s also an insurance agent who was the American Independent Party’s candidate for California state insurance commissioner, but received only 2% of the vote.

But what’s really ironic is that in addition to spewing hate against Muslims, Klein also runs a website mornmoninfo.org that is anti-Mormon. The main part of the site seems to be claiming that Mormons are not Christians. This could become very ironic, because Mitt Romney defended the anti-Muslim film based on the principle of free speech. Would he defend an anti-Mormon website on the same grounds?

© Tom Toles

The Republicans picked Mitt Romney, because he seemed to be their only candidate who wasn’t completely crazy. And then he had to go and do this.

A crisis in the Middle East erupts because some asshole idiot in the US makes a really crappy low-budget movie that seems to be designed solely to anger Muslims (who at this point don’t need much to get them pissed off). It depicts Muhammad as a “cowardly, drunken torturer of children and old women.” Kind of like what would happen if some Muslim made a movie depicting Jesus as a gay pedophile who runs an abortion clinic and shoots up drugs (except a Muslim wouldn’t do that since they actually revere Jesus).

Riots break out. The American embassy in Egypt tries to cool things off by issuing a relatively mild statement condemning people who disrespect religion, any religion. The kind of thing you might do if you are trying to keep your people alive.

So what does Romney do? On 9/11, on the same day when Romney said you shouldn’t criticize the president about foreign affairs, he releases a statement condemning the administration. “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.”

First of all, this statement is a lie. The statement from the embassy was made before any attacks on our diplomatic missions. In fact, the statement was designed to reduce the chances of such an attack.

Is Romney really this trigger happy? In fact, originally the statement was released with an embargo until midnight, so that it would not come out on 9/11. But a few minutes later, the Romney campaign lifted their own embargo. They just couldn’t wait. They had to turn an international incident where American lives were lost into cheap, lying political fodder.

Shame on you Romney. You are not qualified to be dogcatcher, let alone president.

Even Republicans were aghast at Romney. One senior Republican said “They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up.” and called Romney’s statement an “utter disaster” and a “Lehman moment” (referring to when McCain lost it during the financial crisis during the 2008 presidential campaign). Another Republican said “I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy. This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it.”

So what does Romney do? He doubles down on incompetence. Defending his earlier statement against charges that it was released before Romney had all the facts, he said “It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.” In other words, it is more important to act like an overbearing jerk than to try to defuse a violent situation.

Which brought even more disbelief from Republicans. A former Bush State Department official said “It wasn’t presidential of Romney to go political immediately — a tragedy of this magnitude should be something the nation collectively grieves before politics enters the conversation.” Steve Schmidt, senior campaign strategist to Sen. John McCain in McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said Romney’s “comments were a big mistake, and the decision to double down on them was an even bigger mistake. There are legitimate criticisms to be made but you foreclose on your ability to make them when you try to score easy political points. And the American people, when the country is attacked, whether they’re a Republican or Democrat or independent, want to see leaders who have measured responses, not leaders whose first instinct is to try to score political points.” Another former campaign aide for John McCain said that Romney is “Not ready for prime time.” And a former US ambassador to NATO under Bush said “Frankly, the charges he made were not only completely untrue but reckless and irresponsible.”

As damage control, the Romney camp then sends out a set of talking points. If asked “Did Governor Romney ‘jump the gun’ last night in releasing his statement?” they are supposed to respond “No. It is never too soon to stand up for American values and interests.”

And he’s supposed to be the Republican who isn’t crazy?

© Pat Oliphant

Apparently Paul Ryan is so confident of becoming the next vice president that he has decided to start running ads tomorrow for his re-election to Congress.

He’s not alone in his doubts. Other Republicans are starting to give pointed advice to Romney, fearing that he is on the road to losing the election. The biggest criticism? “Stop being so vague.” Rupert Murdoch advised “Stop fearing far right, which has nowhere else to go.” William Kristol even compared Romney’s campaign to that of Michael Dukakis, pointing out that “Mike Dukakis lost.” Jonah Goldberg called Romney the “No Ideas” candidate.

Meanwhile, Michael Cohen provides plenty of evidence that “Mitt Romney is the worst national politician I’ve ever seen” and talks about his “epic incompetence”.

The Center for American Progress gives a good example of why people like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson are willing to throw so much money at Republican candidates.

Adelson says he plans to spend $100 million to get Mitt Romney elected. That’s on top of the money he spent on Newt Gingrich, and doesn’t count the $36 million he has contributed to various Republican Super PACs. That’s an astounding amount of money. It was just a few years ago when the maximum you could contribute to a political candidate was under $2500.

So what will Adelson get in return for his “investment”? If Romney does the things he says he will do, Adelson stands to reap more than $2 billion dollars in reduced taxes over the next four years alone. That’s a 20 times return on investment!

In addition, Romney says he will eliminate the estate tax, which would provide a staggering $8.9 billion windfall to his heirs when he dies.

Who would pay for this? The 95% of Americans who would get hit with a tax increase from the Romney tax plan. Not to mention all of us, since a dramatic cut would be required in government services to pay for Romney’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

© Jim Morin

In repeated polls taken over the last year, a plurality of voters agree with the statement that Republicans are deliberately “stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to ensure that President Obama does not win re-election“.