Why Mitt Romney Should Not Be President

I normally do not make it a habit of coming out against a candidate, I have from time to time brought to light a candidate’s inconsistencies or outright lies but rarely have I made the case against a candidate. This will only be the second such case, the first was Rudy Giuliani because he is running on a misleading and often times false set of circumstances concerning 9/11 and his role in the Bernie Kerik fiasco. In the case of Mitt Romney I am willing to once again demonstrate a basic character flaw which is so entrenched in my opinion it should disqualify him from being elected President.

The deadly character flaw that Mitt Romney suffers from is a lack of courage to lead. America is at a crossroad and the last thing we need is a President without courage and leadership, because the direction and many of the steps we will need to take are not going to be popular and will not be consensus builders. For most of Mr. Romney’s adult life he has avoided the courage of leadership, eventhough he has been in leadership positions. It is one thing to be in charge, it is far different thing to be a leader. Someone in charge merely puts into place the positions and ideas of others, rarely venturing out of the box to express or enact any real change. Our country is in desperate need for real change, not someone who has made a life following and maintaining the status quo.

Civil rights became an even more insistent issue, when boycotts and violent protests over the university’s virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games. The Mormon Church at the time excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as results of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah’s son Ham. (During their training, a fellow missionary of Mr. Romney took notes that read: “All men were created equal — No,” followed by “Sons of Ham. ”)

A handful of students and prominent Mormons — including the Arizona congressman Morris K. Udall and his brother Stewart, then secretary of the interior — called for an end to the doctrine. Some Mormons hoped the pressure would persuade the church to abandon its exclusion of blacks, just as it had stopped endorsing polygamy.

Mitt Romney had walked in civil rights marches with his father and said he shared his concern for racial equality. But neither publicly questioned the church’s teachings.[1]

During the earth-shattering struggles of his time, Mr. Romney repeatedly chose to remain on the sidelines while others took the lead and now he wants us to believe that he is a leader. Where was your leadership Mr. Romney when the country was going through the previous struggles that defined a nation and a generation? An example would be the exclusion of blacks from his Church, Mr. Romney would have us believe that he was against it, yet nowhere publically did he speak out against it, even though being the son of one of the most prominent Mormons in the country he had a platform to do so. But Mr. Romney chose to play it safe and go with flow supposedly secretly wanting the Church to change its doctrine of exclusion.

In this article that I cited Mr. Romney states that how things are done in his church is by God’s intervention, well that’s all fine and good Mr. Romney but you might consider when your “Church” violates a commanding principal of God to maybe join another church? If my church begins to teach the doctrine that women are not spiritually fit to become members it is the time that I as a member must make a decision, to follow God or to follow my church. In this case I am not given the choice of doing nothing, because doing nothing is a choice.

Most of the missionaries, though, were also relieved that their service meant a draft deferment. “I am sorry, but no one was excited to go and get killed in Vietnam,” Mr. Hansen said, acknowledging, “In hindsight, it is easy to be for the war when you don’t have to worry about going to Vietnam.”

Mr. Romney, though, said that he sometimes had wished he were in Vietnam instead of France. “There were surely times on my mission when I was having a particularly difficult time accomplishing very little when I would have longed for the chance to be serving in the military,” he said in an interview, “but that was not to be.”

While many Mormons — and eventually, some of his fellow missionaries — enlisted, Mr. Romney got a student deferment after returning from France. When the draft lottery was introduced in December 1969, he drew a high enough number — 300 — that he would never be called up.[2]

The other issue where Mr. Romney again showed a lack of courage was the question of the war in Vietnam. I’m sorry but I just have to ask; besides John McCain was there any Republican politician that went to defend the country they now hope to lead? So the best the Republicans can offer the country is another long list of chickenhawks, defenders of the war only because they or their ilk will never have to fight in it. What a sad state of affairs for our country. Mr. Romney not only chose to take a deferment, he again uses the disingenuous response of I really wanted to go, but. Mr. Romney if you really wanted to go there would have been nothing to stop you. Take for instances the former professional football player Pat Tillman, he really wanted to go and he went. He left all the comforts and privilege and chose to stand up for what he believed in. It eventually cost him his life, so don’t disgrace the memories of all those who did choose to go and fight with that weak kneed answer.

Mr. Romney has never shown the strength and courage of his convictions, even now on the campaign trail he has stood for something different from when he was a governor. Can our country afford another President who says one thing and does another; I for one do not think so. Courage is not something you get from your relatives, either you have it or you don’t and Mr. Romney does not seem to have it. If he does he has not shown it, which in my opinion makes him not qualified to be President.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15romney.html?pagewanted=3&hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15romney.html?pagewanted=3&hp

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Kerik: A Millstone Around Giuliani

Bernard Kerik, onetime darling and partner of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, is about to be indicted by a federal prosecutor for a list of offences that include tax fraud, corruption, and conspiracy, my how the mighty have fallen. Mr. Kerik was Mr. Giuliani’s hand-picked Corrections Commissioner, Police Commissioner, and would have made it to the upper echelons of the government were it not for someone finaling doing a proper vetting on him. Even after the debacle and embarrassment of submitting him for Homeland Security Director, he continued to remain a partner and earn a substantial salary at Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm.

Federal prosecutors are scheduled to seek a grand jury indictment on Thursday of Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, on a list of charges that include tax fraud, corruption and conspiracy, according to people who have been briefed on the case.

The grand jury, sitting in Westchester, has been hearing evidence about Mr. Kerik for more than a year as part of a broad federal investigation into a variety of allegations, including his acceptance of $165,000 in renovations from a contractor who was seeking a city license.[1]

Now while I am in no way suggesting that Mr. Kerik’s legal troubles cast any aspersions towards Mr. Giuliani’s honesty or integrity, I already had my doubts about that, it does cast aspersions on something that is of vital importance to a country that he wants to be president of. Despite his campaigns rigorous denials to the contrary, the Bernard Kerik case does demonstrate a lack of judgment by their candidate. They can attempt to color over this issue, but Mr. Giuliani’s judgment is now in question. These two men have been inextricably linked since 1990 and so for Rudy to now claim ignorance is beyond the realm of common sense. What does that say about this judgment if he can be so closely linked to this man for all those years and he did not know of his involvement in dubious business deals?

By his own admission Mr. Giuliani has stated that one of his greatest strengths is his ability to surround himself with the right people, able and qualified. My question is, if one of your greatest strengths is suspect, should that not also cast doubts on your other so called strengths? As hard as he tries to run from the embarrassment that his friend Bernie has become, Mr. Giuliani will have to face up to his monumental lack of judgment. He was even pushing to have Mr. Kerik nominated for Homeland Security Director, this is a cabinet level appointment and is an indicator of the type of people Mr. Giuliani would nominate to his own cabinet, not to mention the appointments that don’t even require confirmation. Can this country afford another administration filled with party loyalist and incompetent hacks in positions of leadership? How many Alberto Gonzales and Michael D. Browns are enough?

Mr. Giuliani waved off the dissenters. “I believe that the skill I have developed better than any other was surrounding myself with great people,” Mr. Giuliani wrote in his 2002 book, “Leadership.”[2]

If Mr. Giuliani wants to run on his record and his ability to surround himself with “great people”, then the American people have a right to examine his claims. In the case of this claim it does not hold up to inspection. One of the things that I find so troubling is that when Mr. Giuliani inserted Mr. Kerik’s name for Homeland Security, he and his staff were at that time well aware of Mr. Kerik’s seedy connections to the mob and a host of other dubious facts. Having this information did not deter Mr. Giuliani from submitting his name for consideration. So did he think that the White House would not vett him or did he think that with this White House it wouldn’t matter what his past entailed. Either way it brings up questions that he has not fully answered.

In Mr. Kerik’s case, by the time Mr. Giuliani recommended him for the federal job, his administration knew that Mr. Kerik had acted on behalf of Interstate Industrial. It also knew that he had drawn criticism for a range of other incidents, from sending detectives to search for his lover’s cellphone to using officers to research his autobiography.[3]

Mr. Kerik was not some misguided bureaucrat seduced by the trappings of power, on the contrary Mr. Kerik has a long history of questionable decisions and unsavory relationships. Rumors have dogged him since his days as a NYC detective and continued to follow him through his meteoric rise to the gates of power. I find it incredulous that his one-time mentor was oblivious to these rumors and refused to verify their veracity. Are we now to believe that someone capable of making such a monumental mistake in character is capable of leading a nation during its most troubling times? I don’t think so, thanks to Mr. Bush incompetence is no longer in fashion for the office of Commander and Chief.

"But when you look at the combination of the mistakes and the correct decisions I've made, I think if I made the same balance of those decisions as president of the United States, the country would be in great shape," he continued.[4]

Prior to Bush, Mr. Giuliani might have been able to get away with this logic, but hence Bush it seems anemic and flimsy. How we allow politicians with feeble records to run on those records unchecked is beyond me. We allow war heroes to be lambasted publically, but ignore the flawed records of suspect politicians. I don’t know what we have become, but woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

[1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/federal-charges-expected-against-kerik/index.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/us/politics/03kerik.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/us/politics/03kerik.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
[4] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308340,00.html

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