ROMNEY CANNOT RESIST BIRTHER DIG

Pandering to the worst elements of the far right, Governor Romney returned to his “roots” and said “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.” Mitt’s unspoken insinuation is that doubts remain as to where the President was born. And Mr. Romney knows all too well that the birther movement feeds on an undercurrent of strong feelings, cultivated in fear, that subtly deem the President as foreign or un-American. These sentiments allow for billboards like this or comments like this from this Judge in Texas.  Rather than speak out against these hate-filled zealots, Governor Romney gives credibility to their disturbing rants. These personal slights breed in the same slime pool that spawned Michelle Bachman’s claim that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin is a Muslim Brotherhood agent.

Fortunately for the President, every time Governor Romney begins to gain ground in the polls, he makes unscripted comments in public. Determined to show his creds as the arch conservative he’s not, his comments bring into sharper focus a man uncomfortable with who he is and thus willing to pander to the worst elements of the crowd he finds himself in. He flys over to Israel and starts dissing Palestinians as lesser humans when he’s preaching to the Israeli Jews. While he’s at it, he throws Mexicans under the bus as subsisting in a a lesser culture. He reminds me of the guy we all know who leans over and whispers some comment or slur and gives you the elbow in the ribs and the big smile “you know what I’m saying”? I get the feeling that Romney is one of those guys. He’s searching for himself, and his history of shifting policy positions reinforce this unfortunate truth.

I hope he finds himself soon, because I am tired of the people he’s pandering to. Nuns taught me to take care of your fellow man, have compassion, don’t judge. Few of us follow the model very well, but I can’t get behind a platform that says take care of yourself and and trust the super rich guys to run businesses that will treat us really well. Mitt doesn’t seem willing to stand up to the crazies in his own party and that scares me a bit. My hope is that come November, while no one may be asking for his birth certificate, there will still be some who want to see his tax returns.