Confronted With Killing Of US Diplomats In Libya, Rmoney's First Reaction Is To Politicize The Incident - UPDATED 3X

When I was young, I was taught that "US politics stops at the water's edge": i.e., that the introduction of partisanship into matters of war or diplomacy was unofficially off-limits for any American official. That rule just took a major hit from Mitt Rmoney, who doesn't seem to care what his deplorable politicization of an international incident looks like to the rest of the world.

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three embassy staffers were killed in a rocket attack in Benghazi, apparently in the second day of mob assault on the embassy, which was reportedly destroyed.

A separate article links the attack to the infamous Qur'an-burning American pastor Terry Jones, whose prior very public actions have triggered violence against Americans in Muslim countries before. (Aside: I wonder if the Rev. Jones could be charged as an accessory to murder. I doubt it. I suppose there's a First Amendment issue involved, and there's no American law against being a motherfucking bastard.)

All that aside, what the fuck does Rmoney think he's doing? I know Republicans in general have done their damnedest to stir up as much trouble for Obama as possible; that is clear from their congressional obstructionism to Obama's legislative attempts to create jobs. But... what about that "water's edge" thing?

I realize there are people who have no scruples. (Rmoney seems a good example.) I know there are Americans who consider their highest loyalty to their religion [added] or to their political party [/added], not to their nation. (I suppose America's permitting that is one acid test of whether America has the potential to be a free country.) BUT NO ONE WHO HOLDS THAT BELIEF SHOULD BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. End of story.

Well, not quite. My condolences to the families of Ambassador Stevens and his staff. Diplomacy can be a very dangerous occupation, and their positions... coupled with the utter stupidity of one brainless US pastor... cost them their lives. There is a long history of "shoot the messenger," and regrettably, Ambassador Stevens's death will not be the end of it. But it is always tragic when some of our best and brightest are killed essentially for no good reason.

And Rmoney's reaction? I feel as if he pissed on their graves.

UPDATE: as Ben Smith of BuzzFeed tells us, even many Republicans believe Rmoney's statement was "trying to score a cheap news cycle hit," an "utter disaster," "[n]ot ready for prime time," not "presidential of Romney to go political immediately," etc., etc. What can I say... all of those assessments of Rmoney, all by Republicans, are valid: he is nowhere nearly mature enough to execute foreign policy without precipitating major disasters. This man must NOT become president. (H/T upyernoz for the link.)

UPDATE: this is probably the only occasion on which you will find praise on this site for the responses of Turtle-face and Orange-man, but both Sen. McConnell and Rep. Boehner got it just right:

“Yesterday we commemorated the anniversary of the attacks of September the 11th, and today we are reminded that brave Americans serve us every day at the risk of their own lives,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement. “We honor the Americans we lost in Libya and we will stand united in our response.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced plans for a moment of silence in the House and ordered flags at half staff.

“We mourn for the families of our countrymen in Benghazi, and condemn this horrific attack,” he said in a statement. “Eleven years after September 11, this is a jolting reminder that freedom remains under siege by forces around the globe who relish violence over free expression, and terror over democracy — and that America and free people everywhere must remain vigilant in defense of our liberties.”

Now THAT is the sort of response Rmoney should have offered.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall's piece yesterday, 9/12, on Rmoney's moment of obvious unreadiness for the presidency is well worth reading. His conclusion (all bolds mine):

Bear in mind, this [activity within Romney's campaign] was all happening while attacks on US personnel abroad were ongoing. According to a statement released this morning by the White House, the President was told last night that Ambassador Chris Stevens was unaccounted for. Only this morning did he learn that Stevens had died in the attacks that were on-going last night.

The campaign also authorized Romney’s top foreign policy advisor to give a blistering interview attacking the president while the attacks were continuing.

Politics is hardball. Everything is, in some sense, fair. But campaigns are also a prism into the judgment and steadiness under pressure of a person who would be president. This was amateur hour for the opposition campaign last night, reminiscent of John McCain’s rash call four years ago to cancel the presidential debates and the campaign itself to deal with the unfolding economic crisis. There was nothing ignoble or dishonorable about McCain’s suggestion. It just showed a certain rashness that was widely viewed as unpresidential.

Romney’s moment was quite different — rash and shameful. Not worthy of a president. Crass, undignified and troubling on many levels.

"[R]ash and shameful. Not worthy of a president." Enough said.

Regulate Guns And Shooters Like Cars And Drivers

Flintlock Replica

Via Michael Moore, who himself holds some shooting certifications from the NRA, the suggestion comes from Carl Gibson of US Uncut (no, it's not that he's uncut, but that the group he works for takes direct action to see basic social services uncut until "corporate tax cheats pay up" ... damn, there are gonna be a lotta disappointed pr0n-seeking googlers visiting this post).

Gibson's simple suggestion... regulate guns like cars... makes a great deal of sense to me, and infringes on no one's Second Amendment rights. Gibson proposes that gun owners be required to obtain renewable licenses after passing tests, carry liability insurance and have their guns inspected yearly... just like cars. No one seems to go ballistic over such requirements in order to exercise their equally significant right to drive, so there should be no insane outrage over similar provisions in law regarding use of an equally deadly device, right? right?? Oh... right... the Right.

Gun Ownership As An Individual Right: The Consequences

ellroon at Rants from the Rookery posted a video of Bill Moyers expressing his thoughts on the theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado:



Several years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment confers (or at least confirms) an individual right to "keep and bear Arms," separate and apart from the need for "[a] well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state". Let me turn you over to Wikipedia for the applicable recent Supreme Court decisions:

In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second Amendment decisions. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia[1][2] and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. In dicta, the Court listed many longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession as being consistent with the Second Amendment.[3] In McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.[4]

Whether those cases were rightly decided or not, a lot of Americans, most presumably not militia members (that's another entire post), avail themselves of the right. It's difficult to compare numbers by year because the surveys do not use consistent counting methods, but it appears from Wikipedia that gun ownership ranged from roughly 36.5% to a peak of 50% of households in the mid 1980s, declining since then to a figure difficult to determine from the wiki. As only 11% of households report engaging in hunting... my maternal grandfather's primary if not only use for his rifles and shotguns... most of those guns are kept for other, largely unspecified purposes. Altogether, as of 1994, Americans owned about 192 million guns. The distribution by region is not too surprising: the East South Central States... Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee... have a 60% ownership rate, while the Northeastern United States... Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, plus New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania... have a 25% ownership rate. In my opinion this difference probably largely reflects an urban/rural difference. But considering the political volatility of the subject, if you want different numbers, you can surely find them somewhere on the Web. I'll stick with Wikipedia and its sources.

Let's move on to the real question: in what numbers are we killing ourselves and each other with guns? Wikipedia again: In 2007, gun deaths in America comprised 17,352 suicides and 12,632 homicides, for a total of 31,224 gun-inflicted deaths. (ADDED: I wonder about those 1240 uncategorized deaths.) I find it interesting that suicides exceed homicides by several thousand: with guns readily available, Americans kill themselves with guns more often than other Americans kill them with guns.

---

I'd like to tell you a personal story, originally posted in a slightly different form on ellroon's comment thread.

In my lifetime, my father owned one gun, a low-powered rifle. He bought it long after I left home, at the insistence of my demented mother (I mean the word "demented" literally, as a doctor's diagnosis, not as an expression of my opinion) when she began "hearing things." Dad stored the gun in one closet and hid the ammo in a secret place apart from the gun. As far as I know, he never fired it or even loaded it but once, to test that it worked, again to satisfy my mother's sense of security. (Dad had plenty of firearms training in his youth, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.)

After both my parents had died, I sold the mobile home, complete with the rifle, to their next door neighbor, who already owned at least three rifles. He seemed competent and sane, and selling him the gun did not significantly increase his potential for mayhem if he went crazy.

So: what did I learn from my parents about gun ownership? This:

• You have to be demented to think your safety is increased by owning a firearm.

As a dutiful son, I still practice what I learned from them.

Krugman's Wrap Of Greek Elections

Krugman's perspective sees "Greece as Victim". There is much substance in this short op‑ed, which takes the position that Greece's fundamental problems are not primarily internal and stem rather from attitudes in the economically powerful nations in the euro zone: major failures in the framing of the currency itself, failures not soluble by any amount of Greek austerity. Here's a sample:

...

On the other hand, many things you hear about Greece just aren’t true. The Greeks aren’t lazy — on the contrary, they work longer hours than almost anyone else in Europe, and much longer hours than the Germans in particular. Nor does Greece have a runaway welfare state, as conservatives like to claim; social expenditure as a percentage of G.D.P., the standard measure of the size of the welfare state, is substantially lower in Greece than in, say, Sweden or Germany, countries that have so far weathered the European crisis pretty well.

So how did Greece get into so much trouble? Blame the euro.

...

As so often happens here in America, the banksters in Europe are flinging poo like a great ape. Don't let it hit you! Use some judgment in how much credence you give to the self-interested emissions of northern European leaders.

Two Black Men

I have been politely rebuked for dismissing Obama's support of gay marriage for its ambivalence and for its tone of conciliation toward those who deserve no conciliation on issues of human rights. I would like to contrast the words of two African Americans, both of whom loom large in the history of our nation and of their race.

President Barack Obama, 2012: Well-- well-- well, what I'm saying is is that different states are coming to different conclusions. But this debate is taking place-- at a local level. And I think the whole country is evolving and changing. And-- you know, one of the things that I'd like to see is-- that a conversation continue in a respectful way.


I think it's important to recognize that-- folks-- who-- feel very strongly that marriage should be defined narrowly as-- between a man and a woman-- many of them are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective. They're coming at it because they care about families. And-- they-- they have a different understanding, in terms of-- you know, what the word "marriage" should mean. And I-- a bunch of 'em are friends of mine-- you know, pastors and-- you know, people who-- I deeply respect.

Frederick Douglass, 1857: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.


This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand." Why is that so hard for President Obama to comprehend?