This gets more bizarre the longer it goes on.
Florida has a large population of elderly retired Jews, and Newt Gingrich is targeting them in his personal appearances by claiming that while he was governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed kosher food in state-supported old age homes, thus causing the retirees distress because of the disrespect to their religion.
Sounds pretty nasty, doesn't it? Especially to someone who keeps kosher and imagines all those poor elderly Jews having to choose between violating their faith by eating non-kosher food or starvation.
The real story? What actually happened is that the State of Massachusetts was going through a severe budget crunch and Governor Romney attempted to cut the state budget by ending expensive kosher kitchens in state-supported nursing homes and called for kosher meals to get prepared off-site and bused in to those locations where they were needed. It would have saved the state $600,000 per year, and still provided kosher meals to any Jew that wanted them. The Democrat- dominated Massachusetts legislature shot the proposal down.
Just listen to Newt's new radio spot:
“vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes -- Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher.”
I'm upset about this not only because it gives the lie to Newt Gingrich's claim that he's a 'fiscal conservative' but because it's a disgraceful attempt to manipulate old people and slander another person with a deliberate falsehood. He'll be saying Romney eats babies for breakfast next, and poisons puppies for recreation.
After this, I don't want hear another word from Gingrich or his supporters about 'attack ads' or 'lies'. Not another single word.
"Not a single word." I'm not a Gingrich supporter or a Romney supporter for that matter. At this point, I'd likely support whomever the GOP nominee is. Apparently you are in agreement with the RNC, top party officals, and the "conservative" pundits who are all for Romney. I just hope and pray all of you are right.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, it really does not matter who wins the nomination. The RNC will simply conspire to give it to Mr. Romney if he doesn't win it outright. As such, the best thing would probably be for Mr. Romney to wrap this up quickly. If it comes down to the convention and someone else actually should win but it is awarded to Mr. Romney, there is no telling what this would do to party unity and the Republican party MUST be unified if it expects to have ANY chance of beating Barack Obama.
How exactly is this an unfair attack. If Romney really cut off old, incapacitated Jews from Kosher food just to save a few bucks, then it says a lot about him. And it fits into a pattern of him preying on vulnerable people his entire career.
ReplyDeleteClearly you didn't read the entire story. Duh.
Deleteebp, reread this carefully. Pay particular attention to the parts I emphasize in bold:
ReplyDelete"The real story? What actually happened is that the State of Massachusetts was going through a severe budget crunch and Governor Romney attempted to cut the state budget by ending expensive kosher kitchens in state-supported nursing homes and called for kosher meals to get prepared off-site and bused in to those locations where they were needed. It would have saved the state $600,000 per year, and still provided kosher meals to any Jew that wanted them.
Let me translate this for you into simpler terms:
a) Governor Romney was not 'cutting off' anyone from having kosher food.
b) the state was having a budget crunch
c) He saw a way to save money and still make sure the elderly retirees got their kosher food by having it prepared by outside kitchens and bused in to those homes that needed it instead of building and maintaning a lot of kosher kitchens.
D) In other words, he was going to save the state $600,000 per year having the meals catered rather than prepared at each individual home.
e) In other words, he was going to save money by providing the same kosher food to the same people from one source rather than another.
f) Isn't reading comprehension exciting!!!
g) about that taking advantage of vulnerable people..Governor Romney gives 10% + of his income to charity. What per cent of your income was it you said you gave to charity again?
H) If you just hate the guy because he's rich and successful fine. Just own up to it.
Maybe if Romney hadn't implemented so many socialist policies, there wouldn't have been a budget crunch in the first place. Anyway, I recommend reading Israel Matzav's take on this, because he has experience with Mass. nursing homes.
ReplyDeleteHello epb,
ReplyDeleteSo now we've gone from blaming Romney for a 'vetoing' of kosher food that he never did to blaming him for a budget crunch that was there when he came into office and that he was elected to try to solve..
Classy! Look, just admit you hate and envy the guy for your own personal reasons and have done with it, OK?
FYI, I e-mailed Carl about this wen it first came out and I've already read his take. Now you're going to blame Romney because some nursing homes were looking to cut costs???
Rob -
ReplyDeleteJust because someone doesn't agree with you on something (or is even factually wrong), that doesn't mean they envy people. You're just pulling that out of thin air to insult people (don't you demand your commenters to refrain from ad hominem?)
By the way, people don't dislike Romney because of his money. It's because he inherited it, doesn't care about poor people (his words) and earned his money not by creating something a la Gates and Jobs but by shuffling money around and bankrupting companies while walking away with millions. Ayn Rand would hardly approve.
You ask for posts to be civil. This one was. I await your approval and insults.
OK Anonymous I'll bite ( btw, at least call yourself something so other readers know who you are..perhaps 'Spam Pile Sam' would work).
ReplyDeleteIt's not insulting someone to call them on obvious envy and hatred that even withstands a careful logical takedown of obvious misstatements of fact. That it's factual can be divined by it being up this AM with very slight edits as a news item on American Thinker's news blog.
Let's see how you do with a factual takedown of some obvious misstatements, shall we?
1) Romney didn't say he 'didn't care about poor people' and if you read something besides Soros/Democrat talking points you'd know that. What he actually said was: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich.... I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."
Unlike the Left, Governor Romney understands that it is the middle class and small business owners that drive the economy and pay for that safety net.Stripping every millionaire of all his wealth wouldn't begin to pay for it for very long.
2)'people don't dislike Romney because of his money. It's because he inherited it.' *Chuckle* this is too easy. In fact the elder Romney made his wealth because he made a classic entrepreneurial gamble that he could make AMC profitable and mortgaged his own home to invest in the company and encourage other to do so. His son Mitt, rather than 'inheriting' that money gave almost all of it to charity. And even if he had kept it..you envy someone else their good fortune? Especially when they give 10% of their income every year to charity? Why?
3)'earned his money not by creating something a la Gates and Jobs but by shuffling money around and bankrupting companies while walking away with millions' I thought you said he inherited his money, now you say he earned it?
More to the point, what Mitt Romney did was to:
(a)help acquire poorly run, unprofitable companies most of whom would have gone out of business anyway, save about half of them and turn them into profitable companies that employ thousands of people. And yeah, like a doctor, he sometimes practiced triage with companies too far gone to turn around that would have died anyway, using the capital obtained for other investments that created wealth and jobs. What of it? And do you have any evidence that where possible, Bain didn't attempt to place laid off workers?
(b) provided capital for business startups for people exactly like the ones you just cited, again creating wealth and jobs for thousands . If that's the kind of behavior worthy of being hated or disliked for, we need a lot more of it.
By the way, if you take Romney's success in streamlining business, downsizing excess and making it more efficient, responsive and successful and apply it to what he might do to government, Ayn Rand might very well approve.I have a distinct feeling you just pulled that out of the air and have never read a single word of hers...not that she's exactly one of my favorites either.
It's not insulting someone to call them on obvious envy and hatred
ReplyDeleteHmm. Maybe not. But it's certainly lazy. It's the equivalent of ending an argument with 'and your mother's ugly.' If you're ok with that, well that's fine.
Romney didn't say he 'didn't care about poor people' . . .
As James Taranto points out today (yes, I do read him and think he's brilliant), Clinton made the same argument but his presentation was miles better. If you're looking for Romney to win, you might consider spending less time defending statements like these (you're going to lose no matter what) and spend more time hoping that his advisors are beating some sense in to him. It's not just me making this argument. All sorts of republicans today are angry that he keeps saying things like this and 'I like firing people' and 'I understand what it's like to fear a pink slip'. He's the republican equivalent of Kerry. Defend him all you want - it won't make a lick of difference. The first step is to admit you have a problem...
2)'people don't dislike Romney because of his money. It's because he inherited it.' . . . And even if he had kept it..you envy someone else their good fortune?
You sometimes complain about people's reading comprehension, but yours is no better. I didn't say I disliked him. I said people dislike him. This is analysis, not opinion. Please learn the difference between the two. Besides, financially, I don't have a reason to envy one.
I thought you said he inherited his money, now you say he earned it?
People can do both. Trump did both. Many businessmen do both. They're not mutually exclusive. I don't really understand why this needs to be explained to you.
(b) provided capital for business startups for people exactly like the ones you just cited, again creating wealth and jobs for thousands.
Again, my comments were analysis, not opinion. I have no problem with what Romney did whatsoever. What I am saying is that the random American doesn't like it because they're sick of seeing people on Wall Street move money around and call it creation. This country used to make things and make them well. It used to be the land of the entrepreneur. Now business means something different and I get the sense that Americans yearn for a more Horatio Alger type of capitalism instead of the current state.
Ayn Rand might very well approve.I have a distinct feeling you just pulled that out of the air and have never read a single word of hers.
The heroes of Rands novels are creative types (Roarks and Taggarts and Reardens). The villains I'm afraid are more in the Romney mold. And I've read everyone of her books, fiction and nonfiction. And you won't find a greater defender of capitalism than me. But Rob, you simply can't take criticism, even when it's constructive. You want Romney to win? Consider spending your time finding ways to make him palatable instead of defending a statement that's going to be on every late night comedian's show tonight. If you'd rather just yell at people about how they have 'envy' and 'hatred', be prepared to see this election slip though your fingers.
Would love to hear your response. But try and keep up with the reading comprehension and don't assume things that you don't know (like you did with the Rand thing, which you would find hilariously wrong if you actually knew me personally).
Well hello Spam Pile Sam,
ReplyDeleteSee how much easier that is?
You claim you were doing analysis rather than voicing your own opinions? OK, but I think that's hiding somewhat. 'People' dislike him? So what? Are you now 'people's' spokesperson? Some people dislike Mother Theresa, Jesus and bouef au jus. The fact that you brought these particular points up and even attempted a demonstrable quote out of context and two easily disproved factual misstatements about Romney's 'inherited' wealth and what he actually did for a living seems to indicate that you are one of these 'people', and are merely engaged in trying to deflect a perfectly valid and unanswerable argument...but I digress.
If you dislike Governor Romney, fine. But if you have no problem with what he did as you say, why bother to go to such lengths to categorize how 'evil' he is?
As for James Taranto's bit about Clinton,he likely correct, but there's one HUGE difference. Mr. Bill didn't have to worry about parsing everything that passed through his lips even if they were blatant lies, because he was a Democrat and the media protected him until the stench became to great even for them to ignore.They've behaved exactly the same way with President Obama.
In fact, even if Romney didn't say anything that could be twisted to quote our mutual friend Sarah Palin, they'd just start makin' stuff up.
I find it somewhat amusing that you would label Romney as some sort of plutocrat who inherited
I see you actually might have read Ayn Rand. If so you know that her heroes were actually businesspeople, even if they were working as architects and trying to run a railroad. As someone who spent a great deal of time employed in creative and artistic work and who still derives income from it, allow me to inform you that being creative is as much a part of business as anything else..and vice versa.
As for wanting Governor Romney to win, for me it's more a question of wanting the wasteful, unqualified failure the American people mistakenly allowed into the White House to lose. Romney seems the best qualified and the most likely to win, and I think he'd at least make an acceptable president.
As to whether he can win, impossible to say, but time will tell.For both of us.
Regards,
Rob