The Urban Dictionary defines a “sucker punch” as
[A] closed fist contacting the soft underbelly of a person (beneath the rib cage) at a high velocity...[leaving] the victim open to various other attacks, [such as] what would be called "bitch moves" because of the defenseless nature of the victim.[i]
This is exactly the punch Obama delivered to Romney last
week-- with the help of the Boston Globe.
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| A Fair Fight |
In Romney’s corner, his trainers are screaming bloody murder. “It hurts! This is Chicago-style mean campaign
tactics!”
One brilliant senior Romney advisor,
Ed Gillespie, went so far as to tell CNN’s Candy Crowley that Romney “is not a
felon.” [ii]
Was it Nixon who famously went on TV to say “I am not a
crook?”
Was it Clinton who told the media “I never had sexual
relations with that woman?”
Romney himself is now begging Obama for an apology.[iii]
Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, tried telling
Romney to stop whining and take it like a man.[iv] But the whining continues on and on.
All of this because at a campaign event Obama mentioned a
Boston Globe article that either (1) totally undercuts Romney’s claim that he
left Bain Capital just before it made billions for its partners by
bankrupting American companies, firing workers, and sending American jobs
offshore, or (2) establishes that Romney is criminally guilty of making false
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission about when he stopped
having ownership and managerial duties at Bain.
Since most people really don’t care about this kind of legal
minutia, the story would have been a giant one-newspaper nothing burger had Romney
merely brushed it off. Instead, he
demanded on no less than 5 network shows that Obama stop mentioning this embarrassing
matter.
Mitt seems to think that Obama’s
next move will be to get his Chicago tough-guy bullies together, hold Mittens
down on the playground, and forcibly cut his hair.
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| Romney's Demand |
This whole mess reminds me of a political incident that took
place many years ago. A Member of Congress, who will remain nameless, was voted number one on the Washington Post’s
list of America’s Dumbest Politicians. The
story appeared in the back pages of the Federal section, and was generally regarded
as a harmless humor piece.
The big winner of this esteemed award lived in rural southwest
Virginia, a place where even the headlines of the Washington Post had never
been seen nor heard of. Yet, stung by
the article listing his top gun status, the winner of this award called a local
press conference at the county seat to deny that he was really the dumbest one
of all. The local press all had to send for copies of the Washington Post from
afar, learn about the contest, attend the press conference, and dutifully
publish the Congressman’s denial in their local rags and on the local radio
stations.
You can imagine how well this worked to dispel concerns (which
had never before existed) in the local electorate regarding Congressman X’s
intelligence.
The same dynamic is at work here. It is hard to see how Willard’s
demand for Obama to apologize for mentioning an embarrassing Boston Globe
article is going to work. At least Romney had enough sen se not to actually deny that the article is true. (As we have explained in this blog many times
before, all politicians know that truth and facts don’t really matter in a campaign.)[v]
Instead, Romney is claiming that it is unfair and “unPresidential” of Obama to
bring up such an embarrassing thing.
[i]
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sucker%20punch.
[ii]
CNN State of the Union, Sunday July 15, 2012.
[iii]
On Friday July 13, 2012, Romney schedule last-minute interviews with 5 TV
networks to demand an apology from Obama.
[iv]
On ABC news with George Stephanopoulos, Sunday July 14, 2012.
[v]
See the earlier blog entitled Lies Don’t Matter at http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7224331323079770837#editor/target=post;postID=6145583104160961517
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