Governor Mitt Romney’s Uninterrupted Lying Brings an Even More Toxic Lowness to American Political Culture

© 2012 Peter Free

 

22 June 2012

 

 

Introduction — over time, the pressures of ambition and challenging circumstances reveal true character

 

Mitt Romney, for whom I once had hopes, has proven himself to be one of the real low-lifes of the political arena.

 

Given that politics inherently attracts ambitious connivers, that is saying quite a bit.

 

The former Governor has distinguished himself in displaying the evils of excessive ambition, apparently without any corresponding attachment to the ethical or moral principle that most of us look for in a genuine leader.

 

Michael Cohen, writing in Britain’s The Guardian, took a look at the vomit-inducing state of American politics with his essay entitled, “Mendacious Mitt: Romney's bid to become liar-in-chief.”

 

 

What Michael Cohen wrote about former Governor Romney

 

Mr. Cohen said:

 

Granted, presidential candidates are no strangers to disingenuous or overstated claims; it's pretty much endemic to the business.

 

But Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious.

 

Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.

 

Romney has figured out a loophole – one can lie over and over, and those lies quickly become part of the political narrative, practically immune to "fact-checking".

 

Ironically, the more Romney lies, the harder it then becomes to correct the record. Even if an enterprising reporter can knock down two or three falsehoods, there are still so many more that slip past.

 

Romney is charting new and untraveled waters in American politics. In the process, he is cynically eroding the fragile sense of trust that exists between voters and politicians.

 

© 2012 Michael Cohen, Mendacious Mitt: Romney's bid to become liar-in-chief, The Guardian (21 June 2012) (paragraphs split) (emphasis added)

 

Cohen provides a handful of examples (with specifics), all of which the political Right now assumes to be truths, even though they are provably not true — namely that:

 

President Obama apologized for the United States

 

the 2009 stimulus did not work at all

 

he raised taxes

 

ObamaCare will capture 50 percent of America’s economy

 

and

 

Romney himself can be credited with the auto bailout.

 

Governor Mitt Romney is the only high level politician that I have ever watched, whom I now think is lying whenever he says anything at all.

 

This character trait would almost certainly disappoint Mitt’s deceased dad, Michigan Governor George W. Romney, who once got himself into political trouble by telling the truth about the Vietnam War.

 

Honorable father, rotten son — a Romney topic that I addressed, here.

 

 

Stooping so low to be raised so high

 

Much older than Mr. Cohen, I have been impressed with the historic lowness to which “Mitt the Embarrassing Mormon” has stooped to gain the presidency.

 

He dishonors himself, the memory of his honorably principled father, his Church, and the United States with his seemingly pathological willingness to lie about any and everything.

 

The man is the antithesis of the “noblesse oblige” principle that formerly excused the aristocratically wealthy for their power-hungry ambitions.

 

What surprises me is the Republican Party’s uncritical acceptance of this human example of social rot as its candidate for the American presidency.

 

Though I had fundamental disagreements with Governor Romney’s rival candidates for the Republican nomination, I cannot think of one whom I came to disrespect so much on simple ethical grounds.  Even pugnacious “Notorious Newt” was not so spinelessly and unrelentingly morally irritating.

 

 

When we stoop low into Dishonor’s barrel, we ruin our children’s chances at learning proper moral principles

 

What are we teaching our children with the “nothing is sacred” example that Governor Romney’s ambition sets every time he moves his egregiously deceitful lips?

 

He makes President Obama look as if the Commander in Chief is wedded to Truth, even though the President has repeatedly displayed an offensively blatant disregard for anything resembling accuracy.

 

 

An added indicator of America’s moral decay — unquestioning support from Romney super-PACs

 

Consider the degree to which the Great American Plutocracy is funding the Romney campaign, even while knowing that he is a non-stop liar and, presumably therefore, an unrelentingly dishonorable and untrustworthy human being.

 

What does that say about our culture?

 

Governor Romney is exactly the kind of ambitious and unprincipled politician that these PAC-contributing plutocrats will easily own and puppet.

 

From their perspective, this is money well invested in achieving the influence that keeps the One Percent the one percent.

 

 

The moral? — When we elect morally and intellectually empty people to office, we speed the rot in our American roots

 

We get the leaders we deserve.  Their moral and intellectual shortcomings reflect our own.

 

The 2012 presidential election is going to be an exercise in choosing between two already known and sad ineptitudes.

 

Surely we Americans can pluck more deserving leaders from our midst.

 

I am not yet ready to declare an end to America’s once important gift to hope.