The Closing Statement
Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to apologize for my candidacy. I have treated all of you with disrespect and for that I deserve neither your continued attention or your vote. If I were you, I'd give the other guy four more years.
I am not entitled to etch a sketch the last months in which I have been a man masquerading as many things I would like to think I am not. These debates, in which I spit out memorized text from speech writers who would try to reinvent me, can not undo all that has come before. Let me tell you what I have done wrong.
I have aligned myself with a party which has a flawed vision of politics and whose policies are antithetical to what my religion teaches me. I have become someone who is willing to abandon the poor, the sick, the elderly. I praise only those who are self sufficient and demean those in need. That is not what I was taught as a young man and not what I preached to those who came to me as a leader with a supposedly strong moral compass.
I have shown contempt for millions among us who came here seeking a better life for themselves and their families. I have vowed to make their world so unhappy that they flee our shores. I have characterized as merely inartful vile remarks aimed at a young woman whose only sin was expressing her position on an issue of women's rights.
I have tried to dismiss the efforts of a President who has faced nothing but roadblocks in his attempts to undo the disaster he was handed. I know that my party has been to blame, in large part, for past failures and present stagnation, but I ignore this merely to garner your support.
I have decried as unworkable health care reform that is in many aspects identical to the plan that was the centerpiece of my term as governor. Instead of embracing the millions of people whose lives would be improved by these good works, I have been willing to leave them unattended.
I have hidden from you the truth about my private sector record and my willingness to gut any business in the name of profit for me and mine. I have refused to provide you with my tax returns as I don't want you to understand how I have accumulated much of my wealth by manipulating the system.
I have taken to posturing about what I would do in various foreign arenas when I know that almost none of my big stick talk is true, or proper. I understand that the world is far too complex a place, and our own country far too tired of combat, to follow up on my threats to make everyone who is not with us a target. Along the way I have spoken derogatorily about the worth of a nation of people and castigated the efforts of those organizing games that, for a brief moment,try to unite us all.
I have abandoned truth and reality in search of this highest office. I have been a fraud and a chameleon. I have been unhappy and uncomfortable in my own skin and it has shown, time and time again. I have been less than I can and should be. I have been a disappointment to myself as much as I have to my party. I apologize for everything that I was not. I don't deserve to be President of the United States. Thank you.
10 comments:
And let me say I believe in nothing, stand for nothing, except getting myself elected. T
Has he ever had empathy for those outside his circle of privilege or the ability to speak the truth?
He is a one-dimensional person, adrift in his selfish world.
Couldn't agree more regarding Mr. Romney. However, your own closing paragraph easily applies to the present occupant of the office, who wallows in broken promises, half truths, total lies, obfuscations, evasions, denial, appeasement of terrorists, and a list of failures on the economy too long to recount. Every president inherits the previous government and its economic conditions. What a mess Mr. Obama will inherit when he's re-elected. Who will he blame then?
How does that tally with a president who showed more concern over the waterboarding of the terrorist who masterminded 9/11 than the safety and protection of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi?
Has President Obama been without blemish? Far from it, as I think he has not properly estimated the willingness of the opposition to destroy a nation in its unvarnished efforts to dismantle his presidency. I think he could have done better on the mortgage debacle, and I believe he should have pushed harder for a larger stimulus package.
But you ask who he will blame when he is re-elected. The Republicans don't get to push a reset button after this November. They have created this mess and done everything possible to keep it from being cleaned up on Obama's watch. Who do I blame now and will continue to blame in the future? Guess.
For the person who perceives that the President was not concerned with the well being of the Ambassador in Libya, I suggest you are re-writing the history of the world. This is a dangerous time in a dangerous part of the world. Every scenario is fraught with peril and an incident like the one on 9/11/12 was bound to occur sometime, somewhere. To suggest that this incident portrays a President who does not protect those in his care is unwarranted.
As to water-boarding, let's see where that has gotten us over the years. Guess. No, guess again.
No need to guess where the policies of apology and appeasement of radical Islamists has gotten us with the Middle East on fire. Better to blame a video released in July, apologize for it, fly to Las Vegas for a fundraiser rather than recognize the reality that al Qaeda is far from defeated and America is even more unpopular under Obama than we were under G.W. Bush.
I am glad to be conversing with an obvious fellow Democrat. Your assertion of the President's actions and "apologies" is, like most everything else in the Republican alternate universe, factually unsupported. The truth is that as one dimensional as you would see the universe, it is not that way. Not everything is without nuance. This President has been aggressive in his pursuit of those most at fault, but that has brought him few friends in the Middle East. If George Bush were still running the show, where do you perceive we would be in our relationships with the rest of the world? Guess. No, guess again.
One very disappointed and angry democrat.
Thank God Bush is not running the show, but what do you need a fact to do: Smack you silly in the face until you see it? The fact is simple and painful: This president's foreign policy is an abject failure.
Moreover, it's a sad commentary on the state of the nation when more Americans are outraged by a referee's mangled call in an NFL game than by the murder of four innocent Americans by terrorists in Libya.
Why is it an abject failure? Because he inherited an unwinnable war and did not win it? Because people abroad are as tired of our intrusions as we are tired of being there? Because the Middle East is in the midst of an enormous change and the process is messy and uneven? Because some of those who never liked us are now in position to make their dislike known?
This is a difficult and unpredictable time throughout much of the world. No one is universally liked or appreciated. To expect anything different is to be naive.
And yes, it is a sad commentary that we care more about football scores than death totals.
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