Romney: I Want Bin Laden Dead Or Alive
While on the campaign trail on Sunday, Mitt Romney deployed foreign policy rhetoric straight out of President George Bush’s playbook and even repeated one his most memorable gaffes. Speaking in front of hundreds of Republican voters in Nashua, New Hampshire, Romney was pressed to describe why Osama bin Laden was deemed such a high threat to America. The former Massachusetts governor rambled a bit about the obvious dangers the al Qaeda leader poses — as well as the litany of atrocities he’s committed - before offering: “I want to get Osama bin Laden dead or alive.”
It’s become almost an article of faith that if you’re listening to a Republican Presidential candidate, you’re going to hear some sort of nonsense about 9.11. No, I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve long since grown tired of the constant drumbeat of chest-thumping machismo. Whether it’s Rudy Giuliani mentioning 9.11 as if it’s some sort of mantra, John McCain trying to look firm and resolute, or Mitt Romney just looking foolish, there have been no shortage of attempts to scare the American sheeple into submission. I’m sick of it. This sort of fear-mongering adds nothing to the public dialogue, and it does nothing to prepare us to face our collective future.
Or perhaps what it really comes down to is that, after seven years of the corruption, ineptitude, and cluelessness displayed by Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © , Republicans have nothing to offer but fear, loathing, and a desire for blind retribution. Seven years of GOP hegemony has done little, except to expose it as a party of corrupt, self-interested ideologues more concerned with their own self-aggrandizement and enrichment.
I’m sure that trotting out that all-purpose bogeyman, Osama bin-Laden, helps Republican candidates feel as if they’re demonstrating their resolve to prosecute the war on terror ad infinitum, ad nauseum. This, unfortunately, is the political equivalent of slapping another magnetic ribbon on your SUV- senseless, pointless, and apropos of nothing.
It would be nice to think that we could turn this election season into a dialogue about where we’re headed as a country. Yeah, like that’s going to happen….
