That’s what we want, conservatives don’t trust him on his own.
Now President OBama, what do you think he does? Is there anything Pelosi or Reid do that he has ever opposed? I think it was pretty clear that Pelosi and Reid were running things in the 2009-2010 period.
unless i missed something, mr. obama’s maternal side is heavily english. i’m not quite understanding where romney is going with the anglo saxon heritage thing, as mr obama has an anglo saxon heritage.
And Kenya was a British colony when Obama was born. Except for a touch of Irish he could hardly be more British. 
Ted Bundy did it to snag victims. So did Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono and goodness knows how many other serial killers. I’m not saying that Romney is a serial killer, but he does have the hobby of one.
But a statesman should know enough to follow the local customs on things like this.
At least Romney didn’t say he wanted to congratulate Mrs Queen on her Diamond Jubilee.
Does anyone think that, come November, with the economy still in the shitter, anyone* is going to care what Romney said about the Olympics in July?
I think for Romney, the debates are going to be key. This might give us a glimpse of Romney’s weakness in the debates, but the issue itself is nothing.
*anyone who hasn’t already made up his mind about whom to vote for
This may be the first election in a very long time where the Republicans come close to ceding foreign policy to the Democrats. Thanks to Romney’s bad trip, the Red Team can’t claim a lock on the issue. They’ll try, and they are already trying, but when your candidate underperforms this badly it’s a tough sell. Paris Hilton could have done better.
Actually, it’s in the northwest corner of nowhere.
(shamelessly stolen from The Colbert Report)
Merged two threads on the topic of Romney’s UK trip.
No one who paid the least attention and is not hopelessly biased could possibly think there is any truth to this statement.
Heck, even President Obama will be watching Ann’s horse perform if he can.
Meanwhile, Der Spiegel weighs in on Romney’s embarrassments (English language edition):
I daresay the Germans are rather glad Mr. Mitt won’t be blessing them with his presence on this trip.
Please. Congressional Democrats have been complaining about his lack of leadership from Day 1.
That’s absurd.
Obama doesn’t take stands on issues that he can’t win, and due to Congressional Republicans being in a four year long retard-tantrum there are limited things that he has the position to get through. That said, he’s gotten a surprising amount done through the historic levels of blind, partisan obstructionism.
If you think he hasn’t been leading, the only possible reason for that is because you don’t actually follow real news.
Funfact: Fox News, what you linked to, is a 24 hour polemic. It’s not a real news source.
Not only do I pay attention, I have a long memory. I recall Bill clinton facing exactly the same problem and handling it very differently. Obstruction is only a problem if what you want done is something the public doesn’t want. if the public wants the President’s economic plans to go through, he can simply persuade the public that the Republicans are holding up SPECIFIC bills that would help. Instead, he just sends bills that he knows won’t pass to Congress and then doesn’t talk about them anymore except to his base. the President has done almost nothing to persuade the general public that his policies are useful, a shortcoming even he admitted just recently. Not that he’s taking steps to change it.
Could you use your long memory to cite me the number of filibusters that Clinton faced each year, vs Obama?
No, because of FOX and other Right-Wing Not News Sources, a full third of this country is so utterly misinformed that they go bat-shit insane at the sound of the kinds of things that fix economies in recovery.
If Obama did attempt to make a huge push for some economic policy, the Republicans could block it anyway, and with RWNNS they could push the narrative that whatever the president wanted to push was a bad idea anyway.
If you argue that Plan X is vital, and fully a third of the country is told that Plan X infects you with super-aids and gives money to terrorists, when Plan X fails to get through an obstructionist congress, the obstructionists don’t pay the kind of penalty they might have in the past.
He’s not superman. He doesn’t have the political capital to push anything through congress against a Senate that has the filibuster lever nailed in the Yes position.
Irrelevant, since Republicans had the majority. They could just vote him down, a much more significant obstacle than the filibuster. Clinton still beat them.
That’s an excuse for why the Democrats have given up on trying to communicate with the public.
And why do you think they would win that argument and not the President? Fox News? Really?
How come Republicans succeed in getting public backing? Even George Bush was able to get what he wanted, when he wanted. The lone major exception was Social Security reform, when Democrats discovered their spine.
Successful Presidents have been able to get even hostile Congresses to pass the most important parts of their agenda. And if they failed, you know what they did? They changed their agenda. That’s what Clinton did. He concentrated on areas of common ground, like improving the country’s fiscal situation and making the government work more efficiently.
Obama can’t do exactly what he wants, so he just complains that he can’t do anything. When Democrats stopped giving Reagan everything he wanted, he too focused on things he COULD get done, like tax reform. Republicans are very open to tax reform and the President says he supports it, but he’s made no effort to get the ball rolling.
What he said, itself, isn’t going to be an issue. But I could see this incident contributing to a broad perception that Romney can’t conduct himself properly on the world stage.
I mean, he didn’t even get the name of the country right. This was after talking up “Anglo-Saxon heritage”. Not to mention it’s a nuclear power, one of the world’s major economies, the USA’s (arguably) biggest ally, and he was in the country when he said it. I wonder when he’s visiting Prussia.
So, adaher, why are you nattering on about Obama’s legislative efforts in a thread about Romney in London? Did you mean to post that in a different thread?
Anyway, Romney’s not content with insulting his British hosts; he’s also working hard at alienating the U.S press covering his campaign:
This is really, really dumb. McCain wasn’t such a fool; he cultivated the press, schmoozed with them, made them his pals, and got a lot of favorable coverage out of it. Do Mitt and his handlers, already struggling against the arrogant out-of-touch CEO-bot image, really think it’s a good idea to piss off the people who play such a large role in shaping the coverage of his campaign?
That’s where the discussion led, sorry.
Unlike Mitt Romney, Michelle Obama has been charming and delighting London with her grace and class. Sample headline from the London Evening Standard: “London 2012 Olympics: Are you watching Mitt? Michelle Obama gives a fun masterclass in diplomacy.” My favorite comment at Wonkette on the contrast between the two:
