Warning: Political rant: Obama, Romney

It is so difficult to understand how anyone with even a modicum of intelligence can support a presidential candidate like Mitt Romney. Many of the people who fill the audiences at his speeches seem to be normal Americans, middle class folks who have borne the brunt of the recent downturn in the American economy and still support a guy who helped that along by managing a company that bought failing businesses, milked all the money they could out of them then declared bankruptcy, leaving the taxpayers with the bill and putting those companies' employees out of work.

A guy jumped me on facebook one day for pointing that out, saying those companies already were failing.  I suggested, under that rule, that if someone came upon a person bleeding in the street and shot him to put him out of his misery would he then not be guilty of homicide.  Silence greeted that comment.

 

Day after day some Republican says something highly critical of President Obama.  Lately one called the president the most divisive person in America, this from a member of a party that refuses compromise and has at least tried and often succeeded in saying "NO" to every element of the president’s legislative program.  The fellow's comment raises some interesting psychological questions.  He probably believes what he said is true, that the president is divisive. But, why does he see it that way?  He sees it that way because his party's stand is to oppose everything the president does.  When the president refuses to oppose his own programs, this is certainly divisive to someone who is doing the opposing and that person can only see his own point of view. So, the fellow goes on television to advertise his myopia and by using it to criticize, somehow elevates himself, his party and his candidate above that "divisive president."

Among other things, this divisiveness includes a Congress refusing to confirm judges, creating a serious number of vacancies on the federal benches and creating a huge backlog in the courts.

Others point out his association with a controversial preacher whose church Obama attended more than 10 years ago.  And in Arizona, that bastion of intellectual politics, the secretary of state has held up allowing the president's name on the election ballot because he has received 1,200 emails questioning whether the president was born in the United States.  Give me an hour and I can send him 1,200 emails, but the website Left Action has gone one better, urging people to send emails demanding proof that Mitt Romney is not a unicorn.  Is Mitt Romney a Unicorn? So far the site's members have sent more than the "required" 1,200 emails to  the tune of more than 15,000 at last count and the site has officially declared Romney a unicorn and therefore ineligible to be president, although nothing in the Constitution states specifically the president has to be human. MittRomneyIsAUnicorn.com

Meanwhile, our very own Governor Interrupted stepped off her bus long enough to criticize Obama's agreement made with Afghanistan to end the war there as a cheap photo opportunity.  Of course, to her it would be a photo op, because she would never have understood what happened, but it sounded good so by all means smile for the cameras and say "you betcha"  a couple of times. 

The Republicans also criticize Obama  for politicizing the death of Osama bin Laden, something Bush couldn't get done in seven years despite standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit under a sign declaring Mission Accomplished.  Of course if somehow they could take credit for that it would  be a major campaign issue.

Still Romney who claims understanding because he is "unemployed" (insert snarky chuckle here), who bullied a gay kid in high school, who put thousands of people out of work, who claims credit for resurrecting the auto industry, a move he opposed, claims foul when the Democrats bring up his vile record with Bain Capital and that he supported the auto industry when he bought two Cadillacs.

Maybe, above all, Romney is the poster boy for the Occupy Movement, the target of the Buffett rule, the uberrich patrone who makes and possess millions of dollars but pays a lower tax rate than I do, a tax, incidentally taken from Social Security benefits, one of those supposed entitlements his gang threatens to get rid of, despite the fact that I paid into it for more than 50 years.

None of this even begins to address the war on women.  Is it true Republicans and their crazy religious zealot supporters only care about human beings who are still in the womb?  It doesn't address the GOP efforts to disenfranchise as many Democratic voters as they can in the states that have allowed it, either.

Having been a member of the press for many years, I  find it particularly offensive how the national media jump on the band wagon.  This morning just for fun, I watched CNN for a while.  Now, CNN isn't Fox News, but that doesn't mean there is no bias. My patience for CNN's beautiful, overdramatic actresses playing news anchors is very thin.  I started watching the streamer underneath while trying to tune them out.  I noticed a trend, so I counted as the headlines scrolled by.  There were seven headlines concerning Republicans, Obama or the campaign.  Every one of them had something of a negative slant against the president.  The most even-handed of them said something like "Obama campaign presses Romney on Bain; GOP increases criticism."

It goes on and on and most days I  feel like I have followed Alice down a modern version of the rabbit hole or through that looking glass. An entertaining game of flamingo croquet looks pretty darned good right now.  Maybe when I get the yard cleaned up I can find a large enough flat space to place some wickets; they would be good employment for the pesky squirrels around here,  We might have to play with sandhill cranes in Alaska though.  Not many flamingos around. But, there aren't many people you would call progressive either.