Posted on 12/26/2007 12:14:06 PM PST by lady lawyer
Last April, Newsmax magazine ran a cover story headlined, “Romney to the Rescue: Romney’s Got the Right Stuff for 2008.”
Based on interviews I conducted with Mitt Romney and his friends, family, and aides, as well as with critics and neutral observers, the profile depicted him as a remarkably successful businessman and conservative governor with impeccable character.
Since the Newsmax article appeared nothing has changed.
No one has revealed that Romney appointed a close friend as police chief who has since been indicted for dealings involving figures with ties to the Mafia, as is the case with Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani did this even though he was warned about red flags in the candidate's background.
There have been no revelations that Romney commuted or pardoned 1,033 criminals, including 12 murderers, as did Mike Huckabee. To the contrary, Romney granted no commutations or pardons as governor. Nor did Romney raise taxes. In contrast, by the end of his 10-year tenure, Huckabee was responsible for a 37 percent hike in the sales tax in Arkansas. Spending increased by 65 percent — three times the rate of inflation.
Huckabee joined Democrats in criticizing the Republican Party for tilting its tax policies “toward the people at the top end of the economic scale.” He aligned himself with Democrats and showed an ignorance of the Bush administration’s extensive diplomatic efforts when he said the White House has an “arrogant bunker mentality.”
In contrast to his nice guy public image, when Huckabee asked in a New York Times Magazine interview, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” he belied nastiness and demonstrated what George Will has rightfully suggested is bigotry.
Huckabee’s serial ethics violations and misuse of funds to maintain the governor’s mansion in Arkansas for restaurant meals, pantyhose, and dry cleaning bills recalls Bill and Hillary Clinton’s improper appropriation of White House furniture and chinaware for their Chappaqua, N.Y, home.
Unlike Fred Thompson, Romney has not been revealed to have a lazy streak. Aside from being a key backer of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, in his eight years in the Senate, Thompson was the primary sponsor of only four pieces of legislation, none of any significance. On the campaign trail, the sour-looking Thompson has distinguished himself as someone who schedules two or three events a week and often cancels at the last minute.
A former CIA officer recalls what happened when Thompson and seven other members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee visited Pakistan in late 2002.
“The other senators, including John Edwards, attended the classified intelligence briefing,” the former officer says. “Thompson blew it off and spent a lot of time drinking and eating.”
Finally, Romney has not been found to have a vicious, out–of-control temper, as is true of John McCain. Nor did he twice oppose President Bush’s tax cuts — a key ingredient in the current the economic recovery — as did McCain.
“He [McCain] would disagree about something and then explode,” said former Sen. Bob Smith, a fellow Republican who served with McCain on various committees. “[There were] incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
Over the years, McCain has alternately denied being prone to angry outbursts, admitted he struggles to control his anger, and claimed he only becomes angry over waste and abuse. But those who have experienced it say his anger does not erupt over policy issues or waste and abuse. Rather, his outbursts come when peers disagree with McCain or tell him they won’t support him.
Distorted Image
What has changed since the Newsmax article appeared is that the public’s perception of Romney has been distorted by the lens of media coverage and televised debates that focus on the trivial and irrelevant.
In selecting the CEO of a company, no one would hold a debate among candidates for the job. Instead, a search committee would look at character, which is a compass to future behavior, and competence as measured by candidates’ track records.
The media coverage and debates have focused on anything but. Instead, they have focused on atmospherics, promises that may or may not be kept, who is ahead in the polls, and how well the candidates tell jokes and respond to questions from a snowman on YouTube.
Half the stories and references to Romney in the media refer to his religion, which is irrelevant to how he would perform as president. Some critics say that Romney is not a Christian — leaving Jews out in the cold — or that his Mormon beliefs mean he is gullible. If so, Christians and Jews must be equally gullible. After all, they believe that Moses parted the Red Sea, that Jesus paid taxes with coins from a fish's mouth, and that a drop of oil burned for eight days.
Interestingly, polls show that those most likely to say they would not vote for a Mormon as president are also most likely to describe themselves as liberals, who profess to be tolerant.
With the help of the media, opponents have managed to portray Romney as a flip-flopper. The fact is that while most of the candidates have changed position on some issues, Romney has made a clear change on only one issue. While he has always been personally pro-life, like Ronald Reagan, he is a convert to the pro-life position when it comes to public policy. But as governor, Romney took pro-life stands, vetoing bills that authorized embryo farming, therapeutic cloning, and access to emergency contraception without parental consent.
That track record is far more important than his endorsement of Roe v. Wade more than a decade ago during a debate with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. In fact, even more than Reagan as governor of California, Romney’s actions as governor fit the conservative mold in the most liberal of liberal states.
While playing up the theology of Romney’s religion, the media have downplayed his record of success. Few stories mention that he is both a Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School graduate. Romney started Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, from almost nothing in 1984. In evaluating whether to invest in a company, Romney would conduct massive research and play devil’s advocate to flush out facts.
Relying on those techniques and data he developed about the true amount companies spend on office supplies, Romney decided to invest $600,000 in Staples before it opened its first store in Brighton, Mass. After the opening, he invested millions more.
“He made eight times his money in three years,” Tom Stemberg, founder of Staples, tells me.
Bain Capital now has assets of $40 billion, and Romney is worth close to $250 million. In addition, he established a trust valued at $100 million for his five sons.
Romney worked similar miracles when he took over the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, turning a $397 million budget shortfall into a $56 million profit. As Massachusetts governor, he turned a $3 billion deficit into a surplus without raising taxes. Along the way, Romney developed a health insurance plan designed to cover all Massachusetts residents. It’s now being copied by other states.
In training new agents, the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., teaches that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Yet over and over, voters have ignored warning signs of poor character and have overlooked track records, only to regret it.
When he was a candidate for vice president, Richard Nixon became embroiled in an ethics issue when the New York Post revealed he had secretly accepted $18,000 from private contributors to defray his expenses. It should have come as no surprise that he would end up being driven from office by the scandal known as Watergate.
Given Bill Clinton’s flagrant, compulsive philandering while governor of Arkansas, it should have come as no surprise that he would turn out to be a spineless leader who was unwilling to deal effectively with al-Qaida but was willing to have sex with an intern in the Oval Office and to lie under oath.
When she was first lady, Hillary Clinton fired a White House usher because he returned a call from former first lady Barbara Bush seeking help with her laptop. After 9/11, she appeared on national TV and claimed that when the two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, her daughter Chelsea was going to jog at Battery Park near the towers, where she heard and saw the catastrophe unfold.
Clinton’s arrogance was so profound that she did not coordinate the story with Chelsea, who wrote an article for Talk in which she described where she was that day. According to Chelsea, she was on the other side of town in a friend’s apartment on Park Avenue South. She watched the events unfold on TV.
Only a fool would choose a friend, an electrician, a plumber, or an employee who displayed such nastiness and disregard for the truth. Yet Hillary Clinton is a serious contender for president.
True Conservative
In contrast, when told in July 1996 that the 14-year-old daughter of one of his partners had been missing in New York for three days, Romney closed down Bain Capital and asked its 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find her. The girl had gone to a rave party and taken ecstasy.
“I don’t care how long it takes, we’re going to find her,” Romney told the girl’s father Robert Gay.
As a result of a massive campaign orchestrated by Romney, he was able to locate and rescue the girl when she was within a day of dying from the effects of an overdose.
If that episode — virtually ignored by the media — tells you a lot about the man and his character, so does his choice of a wife. In personality and intelligence, Ann Romney bears a striking resemblance to the widely admired subject of my book "Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady."
Like Giuliani, Romney recognizes that no issue is more important than protecting the country and staying on the offense in the war on terror. But unlike Giuliani and the other leading Republican candidates, Romney’s record demonstrates that he is true to all three prongs of the conservative movement. Many conservatives don’t seem to get that. Instead, they keep looking for a new flavor of the month, only to be disappointed again and again when they learn more about their latest infatuation. Could Felons for Huckabee be next?
“One of the reasons I decided to endorse Romney is that I became convinced that he is the only candidate developing a credible ability to appeal to economic, social, and defense-oriented conservatives,” David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, tells me.
Within the conservative movement, no one is more respected than Keene, who has headed the ACU since 1984. With one million members, the ACU runs the Conservative Political Action Committee’s (CPAC) annual conference in Washington and publishes an annual Rating of Congress — the gold standard for ideological assessments of members of Congress.
“Giuliani appeals to defense-oriented conservatives and can make a credible argument to some economic conservatives, but he can’t pass the giggle test with social conservatives — and doesn’t really try to do so,” says Keene. “Mike Huckabee appeals to social conservatives but has demonstrated virtually no appeal to those who focus on national defense and economic issues. Thompson may have had the potential to do what Romney is now doing, but hasn’t done so. John McCain is a hero to many national defense oriented conservatives, but he has little appeal in other quarters.”
Romney, on the other hand, has “developed into a candidate who has tried hard to appeal across these factions in the way Reagan did some decades ago,” Keene says. “Like all the others, he began with credibility issues, but as time has gone on, more and more conservatives are beginning to accept today’s Mitt Romney as the real deal rather than the caricature others are portraying.”
Reagan Candidate
That is why Romney has the support of conservatives as different as Robert Bork, Paul Weyrich, former Sen. Jim Talent, Michael Novak, and Kate O’Bierne and the editors of National Review, says Keene.
“This support will broaden and deepen as more and more members of the conservative coalition realize that Romney can hold the coalition together and advance their cause better than the other candidates,” predicts Keene.
The Newsmax cover story last April called Romney “The Reagan Candidate.”
That is as true today as it was then.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
Can anybody confirm that you can die from an overdose of ecstasy days after taking too much?
This doesn't sound right to me. Usually, OD's kill people pretty quick.
I am amazed at how many lack integrity, honor and loyalty.
Many who will do withour discernment listen to gossip and be among those who take delight in trying to destroy anothers right.
‘if’ by rudyard kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Press Forward Mitt!
Newsmax RAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!
Petronski...what? You haven't heard that to be deemed a temple "worthy" Mormon, you have to tithe! (If you don't, then you get no temple recommend; no temple recommend = no reach of eternal progression or eligibility for "exaltation"--godhood...this is equivalent to your boss telling you that you won't be eligible for advancement within the company unless you give 10% of your income to the United Way
c) Separation or isolation from friends and family who are “outside” the group...c) Never heard of Mormons doing this.
Friends & family who'd like to be present for two temple Mormons being married in the temple aren't allowed...friends & family are isolated from them for this ceremony.
d) Difficulty or resistance in leaving or “getting out.”..d) As far as I know, Mormons can leave whenever they want, though few seem to want to leave. They’re a happy, successful, patriotic lot—as far as one can say such a thing about an entire group.
I think other FReepers who I've pinged have & can speak to this better than many of us.
Did you do your 'research' with Dan Brown? Brown, author of the DaVinci Code, writes the same anti-Christian and historical fallacies about the inception of the Nicene Creed.
Why not admit that dissing the Nicene Creed is not your own 'research', it is Mormon church doctrine. I know this for a fact because I heard the same argument from my daughter who was LDS for 8 years. I also attended with her at times and read Mormon materials.
So when you decry anti-Mormonism by other posters, think what you are saying about their beliefs and mine.
When her family was LDS, my granddaughter told me she was a member of the only true church. This belief is plainly stated in testimonies I have heard given in the LDS church. This exclusionary doctrine is not often admitted publicly to non-Mormons. The basis for this is an LDS cornerstone that every Christian church is apostate.
The 'true Christ' is found in the canon of Scripture which needs no further additions either from LDS or from Dan Brown.
My dad gave me the “IF” poem on a card, the day I graduated from high school. I still have it.
It is has always inspired me, though, sometimes very difficult to live up to.
Thanks for posting it.
If anyone can smell a rat on this issue it’s Tancredo!
The GOP tickee will likely be Romney with someone conservative from the South. The FReepers will stay home, but that won’t matter much, because many other Pubbies will also, and Osama or Hitlery will take it. That’s my pessimistic prediction. Cain’t run a liberal against a Communist and expect to win!
We are more optimittstic! :^)
Romney on abortion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elx3UWmyAY4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4
Romney’s for Brady Bill and “assault weapon” ban.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=5pcDA9sZES0
but he’s all for the second amendment.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ6-ySOUnrY&feature=related
Who's depicting a caricature? It certainly looks like this NewsMax writer is doing exactly that...:
While he has always been personally pro-life, like Ronald Reagan, he is a convert to the pro-life position when it comes to public policy. But as governor, Romney took pro-life stands, vetoing bills that authorized embryo farming, therapeutic cloning, and access to emergency contraception without parental consent.
So this means someone can be "personally anti-slavery" but then simultaneously be publicly pro-slavery?" As for Romney taking pro-life "stands" during his MA gubernatorial years, would this be like tiptoeing thru the Clinton admin years & finding a few places where somebody could "bookmark" Clinton's few "pro-family" stands? (Clinton, for example, was against same-sex marriage)
Romney's real pro-life track records is as follows:
(1): Romney comes from a heritage that is primarily pro-life. = He says flipped from a Mormon pro-life perspective when he sided with his mom when she ran as a pro-abortion senator in 1970.
(2): But then we learn he's supposedly been "pro-life" all along: "'He's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly,'" Romney adviser Michael Murphy told the conservative National Review last year>, says the Concord Monitor in a previous article to the one that's being posted. (Source: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061210/REPOSITORY/612100304/1217/NEWS98) = So I guess that made him a below-the-radar "flip" acting like a "flop?"
(3): 1994 campaign in Massachusetts: "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." = Mitt the flipster from what most LDS represent
(4): Fast forward to 2001, when Romney needs to reassure Utah Mormons that...he's not really "pro-choice," after all: "I do not wish to be labeled pro-choice." (Mitt Romney, Letter to the Editor, The Salt Lake Tribune, 7/12/01) = So he doesn't want to be known as a "flop" (so what is he?)
(5): But by 2002, guess what? He was pro-abortion again! "I respect and will protect a woman's right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one … Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government's." (Stephanie Ebbert, "Clarity Sought On Romney's Abortion Stance," The Boston Globe, 7/3/05) = Ah, back securely in the "flop" saddle again?
(6): In November of '04, he & his wife had simultaneous pro-life "conversions" where he links it to stem cell research = (So the pro-abortion-but-no-pro-choice-label-please-is-now-a-pro-life-convert? )
(7): On May 27 '05, he affirms his commitment to being "pro-choice" at a press conference. ("I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to laws relating to abortion and choice.") = OK, this is at least a flop from November '04!
(8): What about his gubernatorial record 2003-2006? Mitt NOW says his actions were ALL pro-life. So I assume somewhere in 2005 or so were so pro-life decisions. ("As governor, I’ve had several pieces of legislation reach my desk, which would have expanded abortion rights in Massachusetts. Each of those I vetoed. Every action I’ve taken as the governor that relates to the sanctity of human life, I have stood on the side of life.") = So, then THESE ACTIONS were not only a reversal of his 2002 commitment, but his May 27, 2005 press conference commitment. So "flipping" is beginning to be routine
(9): April 12, 2006--Mitt signs his "Commonwealth Care" into existence, thereby expanding abortion access for poor women. (Wait a minute, I thought he told us post-'06 that ALL of his actions were "pro-life?"). Also, not only this, but as governor, Romney could exercise veto power to portions of Commonwealth Care. Did Romney exercise this power? (Yes, he vetoed Sections 5, 27, 29, 47, 112, 113, 134 & 137). What prominent section dealing with Planned Parenthood as part of the "payment policy advisory board" did Romney choose NOT to veto? (Section 3) That section mandates that one member of MassHealth Payment Policy Board must be appointed by Planned Parenthood League of MA. (See chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006, section 3 for details).
(10): On January 29, 2007 during a visit to South Carolina, Romney stated: “Over the last multiple years, as you know, I have been effectively pro-choice." (Bruce Smith, "Romney Campaigns in SC with Sen. DeMint," The Associated Press, 1/29/07) = OK how could "every action I've taken as the governor that relates to the sanctity of human life..." AND this statement BOTH be true?
(11): Another South Carolina campaign stop has Romney uttering that "I was always for life”: "I am firmly pro-life… I was always for life." (Jim Davenport, "Romney Affirms Opposition to Abortion," The Associated Press, 2/9/2007) = Oh, of course as the above shows, he's always been pro-life!
(12) " I never said I was pro-choice, but my position was effectively pro-choice." Source: 2007 GOP Iowa Straw Poll debate 8/5/2007 = OK...looking at the 1994 & 2002 campaigns, how could he say he "never said" he was "pro-choice?"
(13): Then comes his 8/12/07 interview with Chris Wallace of Fox: "I never called myself pro-choice. I never allowed myself to use the word pro-choice because I didn't FEEL I was pro-choice. I would protect the law, I said, as it was, but I wasn't pro-choice, and so..." = That whatever he was from 1970 when his mom ran as a pro-abortion senator & he sided with her, to 5/27/05, w/whatever interruption he had due to a pro-life altar call in Nov of '04, whatever that was...well, he assures us it wasn't a pro-abortion inlook or outlook 'cause he didn't feel "pro-choice..." = So does that make him a life-long pro-lifer?
LOL! Well said.
Well, sorry, but with me it's country first then God...if it weren't that way there would be no God to worship because we probably would be bowing to whomever was the emperor of Japan and the fuhrer of the successive Reich by now and there would be no religious freedom. Mitt's father, George, was an extremely liberal and vocal critic of Vietnam; claiming that generals such as William Westmoreland had "brainwashed" him in his early support of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And, if he ever marched with MLK by proxy and spirit, he also most assuredly marched with the likes of Jane Fonda, John Kerry, and Benjamin Spock.
I realize that you are a strong Mittwitt, but you will never be able to convince me that Mittens wasn't also an anti-warrior during those times and was mighty glad he was yucking it up in Paris while other Mormons his age were either dying or sweating it out in the humid jungles of Nam.
So now simply quoting prominent Mormon doctrine = "bigotry?" (much of LDS thought centers around the so-called "pre-existence" & the relationship between Heavenly Father & his literal spirit children, of whom Satan is one--the LDS "elder brother" of us all as is Jesus, who beat Lucifer to the spirit birth delivery room)
Does the true Christ need additions from the Council of Nicea? Apparently so.
As for the timing and the conduct of said council, that’s not Mormon “doctrine,” it’s historical fact.
Baloney!!!!!! So, not one person has any integrity on this site? That sure leaves you out! [MamaB]
MamaB, doncha know? You, too, could be on the Board for a motel/hotel sleazy in-room porn industry industry...of which their profits are considerable...like Romney was for a number years via Marriott & display your "little finger...integrity" like him?
We believe that God the Father is the spiritual father of us all. So in that sense, all are brothers, including Lucifer and Christ. BTW, if God didn’t create Lucifer, who did?
But Christ was the only begotten of the Father in the flesh. So, in that sense, Christ has no brothers. Huckabee’s “innocent” question is a gross distortion
The Institute for Religious Research (IRR) is an organization that researches religious organizations and points out where their doctrines and beliefs are in conflict with God’s Word. They do not focus on one religion and they are NOT an anti-Mormon site. Take a look at it and after reading some of the information see if you still think that the Mormon Church is not a cult.
http://www.irr.org/mit/Default.html
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