Sunday, July 29, 2012

Mitt and the Olympiads

On July 25th, Brian Williams of ABC asked Mitt Romney what he thought about the Olympics. Mitt's reply has become a huge scandal. All the news commentators, are calling it a great misstep in his campaign. How oh how can Mitt win now that he has said such terrible things about England and the Olympics? Wow! Well just what did Mitt say that was so bad. It took a little digging to find a transcript of the terrible things Mitt said but here it is in all its horror. 


MITT ROMNEY:
You know, it's hard to know just how well it were turn out-- will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the-- private security firm not having enough people-- the sup-- supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging. Because in the games, there-- there are three parts that makes games successful.

Number one, of course, are the athletes. That's what overwhelmingly the games are about. Number two are the volunteers. And they'll have great volunteers here. But number three are the people of the-- of the country. Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the games actually begin.

 Yep, read'em and weep folks. That is all he said. It is horrible isn't it? 

He said that it is difficult to tell how successful a huge project that took of billions of dollars, years of planning and execution, thousands of man hours and most importantly, that had not happened yet would turn out. The nerve of him to not declare a complete and utter success for an event that had not yet occurred.

He had the gall to identify that there were things that were disconcerting. He did not say problems he just said disconcerting. He went on to identify two things both of which had been identified by the press both in and out of Briton as PROBLEMS, not just disconcerting.

Mitt identified three things he thought were necessary for a "good" Olympics.

"Number one, of course, are the athletes. That's what overwhelmingly the games are about." Well there is his first mistake. He assumed the Olympics was about the athletes when everyone running the show know it is about the logos, the sponsorships, the TV time, the brands, the MONEY. Foolish man doesn't he know better.

"Number two are the volunteers. And they'll have great volunteers here." No matter how you try to turn it around that sounds pretty positive about the people. But I'm sure someone in the press found a pretzel twist that would make it sound bad.

"But number three are the people of the-- of the country. Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the games actually begin." There it is again he did not make a glowing prediction about the success of something that has not yet occurred. 

One of the things most everyone desires in their politicians is that they tell us what they are really thinking and tell us the truth. It is something we rarely get. 
Well Mitt Romney just told us what he was really thinking, he gave us a truthful opinion. For that everyone is now saying he cannot be President. You know what they may just be right.


 

1 comment:

  1. Only just discovered the blog and so a bit behind the curve on this one. As a British reader can I offer my take on Mitt and the Olympics?

    First things first. We currently have a Conservative-led government in the UK which has garnered some favourable notices Stateside because of its fiscal conservatism. Mitt Romney, and our Prime Minister David Cameron, should be natural allies, both being men of the right. The other major Conservative politician in the land, currently, is the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Again a natural ally to politicians of the right.

    Second, the Olympics is a big thing. It was a big thing for the Chinese, and it was a big thing for us. In the run up to the games we hoped it would show Britain off to the rest of the world in a favourable light. A good politician would have twigged this. A good politician might have been diplomatic. But no Mitt waded in. And to misquote Oscar Wilde: "To lose one Conservative friend may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

    When you have the Mayor of London quoting Barack Obama slogans back to you, you really have screwed up.

    Oh, and by the time he made that quote, about the British people, "Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?" about twelve million people - or one in five of the population - had already turned out to see the Olympic Torch. To see the Torch!

    There is virtue in speaking truth to power - although really who has the power in the US-UK relationship? - but there is also virtue in building alliances and not coming across as arrogant know all ... whose doesn't actually, know it all.

    Ahhh, I feel better now ... like the blog.

    ReplyDelete