"The Choice 2012" A PBS biography

 
 

This two hour production was aired on Wednesday 9 October, 2012.  It was a thorough look at the two men.  I was not comforted.

Romney emerged from this portrait as a self obsessed businessman who wants the presidency as a prize, a symbol of accomplishment in a life dedicated to personal accomplishment and devotion to a church that he avoids discussing.  He has a very exalted view of himself as does his wife.  In one revealing incident recounted in the production, Romney and his wife met with a group of Iowa Republicans in Boston just after he left the State House.  One of the Iowans asked hard questions.  Ann Romney was so incensed at this that she rose, left the room without a word and did not return.  What does this say of the imperial  presidency that might emerge from a Romney victory?  The tale of his always shifting policy positions makes it clear that he is through and through a businessman.  Policy positions mean nothing in business.  Only profits have meaning in business.   If you think that you know what a President Romney might do in a crisis with regard to any issue, you are probably wrong.  In any situation he will sum up his personal "balance sheet" and act on that basis.

President Obama may not be strong enough physically and emotionally to suffer the "blows" that would be his portion in another four year term.  Look how much the man has aged in the last four.  His road to power was a tortured path in which he survived and prospered by his wits as he moved from one elite eductional institution to another in search of identity.  Listenng to him speak to the camera as president of the Harvard Law Review is revealing.  IMO, at that point he was still a white man in a somewhat black skin and his black colleagues on the Review thought the same.  His body language, diction and vocabulary selection were not "black" at all.  It took his deliberate "voyage" into the bosom of his wife's family to achieve what is at least a plausible public persona as a black American, rather than just another mainstream American.  If he is elected, Republican obstructionism will continue unabated.  He is a sensitive, intelligent soul.  He looks exhausted, used up.  pl

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice-2012/

Comments

[optimax]

To paraphrase a few quotes from Romney and his wife that make George W. Bush look like a secular isolationist:

Mrs. Romney: "He (Romney) will save America." She isn't the only wife to worship her husband and believe he is a savior of sorts, but it does make Obama's absurd pledge to change America look meekly centrist.

Gov. Romney: "I will use the world's most powerful tool (US military) to shape the world." Perpetual war and continued loss of our liberties, begun under the G.W. Bush administration, will accelerate with Romney. This goes beyond Bush's strategy of ridding the world of evil--an impossibilty only an evangelical could believe in--and is only possible as an episode ot the Twilight Zone.

Romney doesn't want to talk about his religion and if anyone investigates the LDS, they understand it is strange enough to scare the average American from voting for a man who as a higher up in the church believes its teachings. I don't know if THE WHITE HORSE PROPHECY is really a secret teaching of the church or b.s., but I don't want to take a chance on some religious CEO trying to turn the world into the Magic Kingdom. We'd be better off defrosting Walt and electing him president.

[Jane]

I doubt it.

In 2009, Mitt Romney, who is now trying to campaign for president as a moderate, lent his star power to an unusual charitable project: celebrating right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck to raise money for an unaccredited Utah-based college, which was founded by acolytes of the late W. Cleon Skousen and promoted the work of this fringe conservative figure. Much-touted by Beck, Skousen was an anti-communist crusader, a purported political philosopher, a historian accused of racist revisionism, and a right-wing conspiracy theorist. He contended that the Founding Fathers were direct descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, claimed that a global cabal of bankers controlled the world from behind the scenes, and wrote a book that referred to the “blessings of slavery.” Skousen, who died in 2006, taught Romney at Brigham Young University. (my emphasis)

Why would he?

[Al Spafford]

This I do not get, "...The Republican Party of thirty years ago would be described in farcical terms as Nazis by todays ... media ..." Then, today's Tea Party Republican party would be to the far right of Attila the Hun, per our media?

[Tyler]

The Tea Party was in reality a bunch of old people who liked to dress as their favorite Revolutionary War tropes, wave the Gadsden Flag, and yell about taxes.

The constant media drumbeat was about how racist the Tea Party was because they hated Obama, because they hated blacks, hated gays, etc etc etc. You must have slept through the smug pretentiousness of Matthews, Scarborough, et al whenever they reported on the Tea Party.

Meanwhile fucking Occupy Oakland burns an American flag, the 'encampments' are filled with rapes and drug overdoses that the media buries, and is rewarded with fawning coverage in the MSM about the 'energy' and 'exuburance' of assholes who throw shit at the cops when they try to block traffic in downtown Manhattan.

Do you really want to argue this?

[Tyler]

No, but in a perfect world I probably would have gone. I just picked up the classics through the direction of men who knew more than I did. My children will go to Catholic School, but thank you for the compliment.

We agree on your second point wholly. Though I think the time between Americans shedding consumerism and rediscovering what being a citizen means is going to be a time of tribulation for all involved. I imagine fire and blood has to be better than being a nation of obese idiots shoving their feed holes full of cheaply processed food and obsessing over Honey Boo Boo and getting a pay day loan to cover the cost of Brenette's iPhone5.

The sad thing is, Matthew, is that we recognized, commented, and complimented each other's literary illusions. How many Americans could do that now?

[optimax]

If you add gomint funding to PBS to AMtrak's, you still come up short to what we give Israel. I can't stand commercial television. Even watching a Netflix History Channel or National Geographic dvd, with commercials taken out, is torture because the tempo of the program is destroyed by the rehashing of a previous scene that when originally broadcast was interrupted by a commercial. And I'd rather travel by train than plane.

The hyper-kenetic, free market, infinite growth paradigm is built on lies, is unsustainable and is destroying the planet. Capitalism is great for toothpaste, cars, going to Mars and yada yada yada but its only purpose is to make the investor money and not make life better for anyone else. The free market is not a natural force beyond our control shaping our world.

[confusedponderer]

"Discussions like these on this site and
others rarely exists in the public domain."

Indeed, this site is a gem.

"... you are met with a blank stare or outright hostility if you do not agree with the others position."

I can to an extent confirm that even from my experience from discussing with Americans during the run-up to and during the early Iraq war.

I was the skunk at the picnic for voicing doubt about the WMD case, the legality of the war, and that was met with furious outrage by the right-wingers and dialogue quickly degenerated into name-calling (Saddamite was my favourite).

I found the rancour as much as the extent of partisanship and polarisation striking. Also, many folks were often simply very poorly informed and picked their info from sites and sources they sympathised with, FOX featuring prominently. The dialogue, to the extent that it existed, was devoid of civility. I fared better with the more centrist leaning folks, but often they had been 'out there' i.e. had travelled and seen a thing or two about the world. My sample was without exception college educated.

[Jane]

The middle paragraph is a quote and the program I use was supposed to show it as a link.

I'll try again:

In 2009, Mitt Romney, who is now trying to campaign for president as a moderate, lent his star power to an unusual charitable project: celebrating right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck to raise money for an unaccredited Utah-based college, which was founded by acolytes of the late W. Cleon Skousen and promoted the work of this fringe conservative figure. Much-touted by Beck, Skousen was an anti-communist crusader, a purported political philosopher, a historian accused of racist revisionism, and a right-wing conspiracy theorist. He contended that the Founding Fathers were direct descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, claimed that a global cabal of bankers controlled the world from behind the scenes, and wrote a book that referred to the "blessings of slavery." Skousen, who died in 2006, taught Romney at Brigham Young University.

If that doesn't work here is the address:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/mitt-romney-video-wythe-glenn-beck-cleon-skousen

[Clifford Kiracofe]

OK, this gives me some hope. Next question is how can R be moved to dump them? The only thing I can think of is some intervention by adults in the Republican Party if that would mean anything to him. He would have to be persuaded that he would do better without the Necons than with them.

Of course he needs to win the Election in order to actually have a transition. But it is in the transition phase that they can be dumped. Dumping can range from dropping them completely to finding meaningless positions for them without any decisionmaking authority.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Jane,

"Lost Tribes" thing. This would be the ideology of the "British-Israel" networks which sprang up in the 19th century?

In the 1950s, there was some Canadian anti-communist type who promoted this in US anti-communist circles as I recall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

[Clifford Kiracofe]

The use of the jargon terms "shape" and "shaping" is popular in some political science quarters. Brzezinski uses the terms, for example, as do other professors and perhaps this has popularized it with speechwriters and politicians and journalists.

It is consistent with the Neocon view so they can also use the term for their own purposes. The superpower US will "shape" events and shape the world and so on.

The Neocons have a Jacobin perspective and thus promote global revolution at the point of the US gun. This stems from their Nietzschean roots as well as from their Trotskyist roots. Also from their roots in Jabotinsky when it comes to the Middle East. Some Neocons call this "muscular Wilsonianism."

If he is elected and does not dump the Neocons then we are looking at continued "perpetual war for perpetual peace" of the Bush-Cheney variety. Magical thinking...

[r whitman]

Any speculation if Romney is elected, who he might nominate for SecState, SecDefense, Natl Security advisor??

[hope4usa]

Just a word to the wise. I went to a Catholic High (prep)School. It was originally a seminary and then allowed women in. It was an excellent education. All religions were taught from a historical viewpoint so as to enlighten and inform us, but not to indoctrinate. For example, we debated/discussed when did life begin, contraception, abortion. I was impressed. They encouraged people to think, to understand historical relevancy in order to better understand yourself and others. Those types of Catholic schools are gone. They no longer exist. My children have all gone to Catholic school, the best thing I can say is they received a strong English/writing background. If your child exhibits and learning issues avoid them like the plague.

[Tyler]

Illusions should have been allusions. My mistake, it was late.

[Tyler]

Hah hah hah.

Try being a race realist or not a fan of homosexuality in America today if you want to see outright hostility. I gurantee more people have lost their careers for multicult thoughtcrime than because they didn't agree with Fox News.

I had someone on this blog try to figure out where I worked so he could tattle to my boss about what nasty things I was saying about Trayvon Martin.

I don't get the obsession some people have with Fox News, as if MSNBC, Huff Post, and Daily Kos are bastions of truth.

[William R. Cumming]

Note Bene! U. VA just established a chair in the study of "Mormonism"! Wondering if school of religion or political science?

[Fred]

CP, I found the same thing, too. I did on a couple of occasions (when I knew who’d be at the event) pull out an application to the MI national guard. Got no takers. No surprise to me. Called a couple of people cowards to their face. Shocked a few spouses, but their husbands just slunk away. Haven’t been invited back, but certainly made my point.

[ked]

these days, what's the difference?

[optimax]

I've been called depressing and told I need a soapbox by persons I find uninteresting and uninformed. Many of the young are proud of not voting.

[optimax]

It's also LDS

[optimax]

The Neocons are found of magical thinking. After 9/11 they were as happy as children in a playground during recess, spouting such maxims as "history begins today" and "we write our own reality." Romney showed this magical thinking to be his own when he said, in so many words, that we (the US) can not always be reacting to events that spring up around the world but must control them. This is a dangerous and absurd extension of the Truman Doctrine that only made us the policeman of the world. From cop to god in one painful lesson.

I would rather see Obama destroy himself under the stress of a second term than elect another president who will finish ruining our country, and others, by trying to outdo his daddy.

[Tyler]

Thank you for the advice. I was planning to enroll them in a SSPX run school. They seem to maintain the tradition n more ways then one.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

rwhitman,

Key questions. Cabinet level selections should include Democrat(s) to immediately signal bi-partisanship.

The intervention of Mrs. Romney and her eldest son may have some broad implications. Will this lead to a more moderate administration than what some assume?

Will he consult with party elders of the normal adult type? Jim Baker, Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel and so on? If he takes such advice that could lead to more moderate choices rather than to Neocon, Neocon fellow traveler, or Neocon influenced types.

The choice of Zoelleck for supervising part of the transition could well indicate more normal adult Republican choices for NSC slots rather than Neocons.

Time will tell and we have to keep watching daily developments carefully for indications.

[Laura Wilson]

"Chosen?" Well, yes, they are Mormon royalty...and he will be a god. (Literally)

[Laura Wilson]

I wonder how it feels and weighs on you to be a pretty bright guy, who has lived in some interesting places and met some interesting people, who loves words and believes that he is his brothers keeper...has had success and is now the most hated man in the USA. Constantly, grindingly exposed to the hatred and knowledge that those who hate him are the very people he considers needing care and concern.

How absolutely devasting to your sense of self...but it is his job to defend us all and, to some extent, he has to "deal" with the haters on a daily basis. (And, NO, this is NOT the same thing that Bush II had to deal with....Lincoln, maybe.)