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Thursday, July 26, 2012

2012 Mitt Romney Offends All of the United Kingdom to Demonstrate His Foreign Policy Skills

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 10:49 AM

Boy, oh boy. Mitt Romney sure is building up his foreign policy bona-fides on this trip. He's been away from the United States for about a day, and he's already gotten publicly bitch-slapped by Prime Minister David Cameron for his lack of diplomacy.

The dustup began Wednesday, as Romney, who ran the 2002 Salt Lake City games, said there were "disconcerting" signs in the days before this year's games.

"The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials — that obviously is not something which is encouraging," he told NBC News.

"Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the games actually begin," he said.

Cameron soon rebuked Romney. "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere," he said*.

"I think we will show the whole world not just that we come together as a United Kingdom, but also we're extremely good at welcoming people from across the world," Cameron added. "I will obviously make those points to Mitt Romney. I look forward to meeting him."

There's a reason that I just wrote 3500 words about why nobody likes Mitt Romney. I've got a feeling that his world tour is going to be full of gritted teeth and awkward photo ops.

* Snap! BURN ON SALT LAKE CITY FROM DAVID CAMERON! What are you gonna do about it, SLC?

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So much for his Anglo Saxon heritage.

Posted by GermanSausage on July 26, 2012 at 10:57 AM

Let's do a betting pool. Who will Mittens insult next? The French? Germans? Spanish?

Ooh, I know. He can refer to Ireland as an English province and Anglo-Saxon colony.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on July 26, 2012 at 10:58 AM

I look forward to meeting him.

"NOT."

Posted by MLM on July 26, 2012 at 11:03 AM

I had to stifle a laugh at work.
Oh Mitt, how hard is it to go through life so oblivious to reality?

Posted by Enigma

on July 26, 2012 at 11:06 AM

You also forgot breaking a major diplomatic/legal taboo by bragging about his meeting with MI6.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul…

Whoops! Can't wait to see how his paid shills here spin this one.

Posted by FonsieScheme on July 26, 2012 at 11:08 AM

I do not know if I have ever met or heard of someone who is so intelligent, but so clueless in how to act towards and around others who are not exactly like him or fawning over him.

Is it a cloistered Mormon thing, or just a cloistered mega-rich guy thing? Both?

Posted by Theodore Gorath on July 26, 2012 at 11:22 AM

As little love as I have for Cameron, I did enjoy his smackdown of Romney's 'expertise.'

That said, Salt Lake City, as much as I love you and your many fucked up idiosyncrasies, you are in fact in the middle of nowhere, so please go ahead and tell your mayor to shut the fuck up.

Posted by johnjjeeves on July 26, 2012 at 11:24 AM

Romney is painting himself as the "savior" of the Olympics.

Yeah. Because the modern olympics that survived two world wars, the cold war, terrorist attacks, and political boycotts was saved AT LAST by Mitt Romney.

Posted by tkc on July 26, 2012 at 11:41 AM

@5 There's something extra hypocritical here, what with Mitt's partisans trying to make something out of the White House "leaking secrets" about the bin Laden kill. I think Mitt just pissed all over that line of attack with his own little international intelligence indiscretion, involving our closest NATO ally, at that!

Posted by Brooklyn Reader on July 26, 2012 at 11:43 AM

@2, I believe he's going to Poland next and then Israel, so they're the next ones he'll be blundering into.

@"gay guy for Romney", I'm certain you'll be along soon enough. These aren't "gaffs", they are tone deaf bumblings of a hollow man who is clearly out of his depth and needs to return to the relative safety of the shallow end of the pool.

Romney crumbles like a house of cards at the least little push back. They idea of him Governing with his balls locked in a vice between the Tea Baggers on one side and the Neo-Cons on the other (that is his "base" after all) is just too frightening for words.

Posted by Machiavelli was framed on July 26, 2012 at 11:44 AM

"I have to tell you. This is Ann’s sport. I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well."

You don't need to lie about EVERYTHING, Willard. You could have said you'll have to watch it on TV because you're busy running for President. Moroni!

Posted by Max Solomon on July 26, 2012 at 11:51 AM

I like Britain...frankly most days I'd rather be British than American. They tend to be a little less....psyco.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on July 26, 2012 at 11:52 AM

Can't wait to see what happens in Poland. Is Romney going to visit any Nazi death camps?

@5's link has some great stuff.

"(David Cameron) can stop by any time," a spokesperson for SLC Mayor Ralph Becker told Coppins in a statement. "We'd love to have him and are happy to send a map so he doesn't run into any trouble locating the middle of nowhere."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul…

And:
in his 2010 book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. . .Romney wrote:

England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth's land and a quarter of the earth's population.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul…

Posted by seatackled on July 26, 2012 at 12:01 PM

Damn, I didn't know there were Mitt Romney Olympic pins. I want one.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/201…

Posted by seatackled on July 26, 2012 at 12:18 PM

As a long time Salt Laker, I'm not gonna argue. We really ARE in the middle of nowheresville. Usually that's a selling point, though, and it's hard to take offense at his statement of fact.

Posted by katallred on July 26, 2012 at 2:59 PM

I'm going to have to tell people I'm from Canada again, aren't I? Abooot. Aboooooot.

Posted by Soupytwist

on July 26, 2012 at 4:21 PM

@2 - More likely, he'll just offhand refer to the Irish as British. That very nearly got a friend of mine beaten severely by a timid Irishman, especially when he dismissively waved off the correction saying "right, right, whatever."

Posted by MacCrocodile

on July 26, 2012 at 5:26 PM

I never assumed Mr Cameron was referring to Salt Lake City when he said "middle of nowhere". I think people are a little too quick to read things into his statements that weren't actually there. I imagined a hypothetical "middle of nowhere", not the actual SLC. But I could be wrong.

As for Romney, yeah, he's pretty cringe-inducing.

Posted by brendan on July 26, 2012 at 7:48 PM

Salt Lake is "in the middle" of some of the most amazing (public) lands humans have (easy) access to.

Publish wilderness and wildness as nowhere. Fuck the connotation, this is one of the attractive features of the American West.

Posted by gwhayduke