reflectivepundit

Hurricane Sandy: Back to Mundane Chores

By Brigitte L. Nacos

With Sandy on its way to the East coast and a steadily stronger wind already taking down trees and power lines, our close attention to Mother Nature’s fury is overriding our previous preoccupation with the upcoming presidential election as well as high profile congressional races.

Instead of reading the latest news and opinion pieces about President Obama and former governor Romney or worrying about particular election outcomes, there have been  more mundane tasks to take care of:

Securing outdoor furniture and flower pots and the grill on the patio.

Filling buckets and bath tubs with water in case our water supply will be interrupted.

Placing flash lights strategically around the house since we expect to lose electricity—most probably at the heights of the storm tonight.

Charging cell phone and lap top computer.

Checking phone numbers to report electric, cable, phone outages.

Preparing food that does not need baking, cooking, grilling.

Our little community sits only a stone throw away from an inlet of Long Island Sound—but high enough that we don’t fear the predicted record height of tonight’s onslaught of Sandy supposed to coincide with the highest tide  and a full moon.  

The expected strength of the storm is another matter.

As I look out a window in the early afternoon,  the storm rips ever more of the colorful autumn leaves off our trees and shakes stems and branches relentlessly.

Thankfully, this is a young community with young trees.

Moreover, unlike in the rest of our town and most of the county our neighborhood  is lucky that the electric cables, unlike land phone and cable lines, are underground.

Problem is that the areas around us are full of very old, huge trees. Even if those tree giants withstand the coming record winds—and many will not as we know from previous, far less potent storms--, massive branches tend to fall on overland power lines and cut everyone off.

So, right now we think about the advantages of having one’s own generator. Or sharing one with our next door neighbor.

When we moved here, we left a generator behind convinced that we would not need it any longer.

Whatever happens over the next 24 hours or so, we are lucky that the air temperature is quite mild.

So, if needed, we can do without heat.

And we also can do without news and punditry about election campaigns.

Karl Rove and Mitt Romney: Ruthless Exploitation of the Benghazi Tragedy Ignores GOP Presidents’ Problems with Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The ad shows the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where several weeks ago Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and three other Americas were killed in a terrorist strike. As Salon describes it, a voice states that President Obama spent the day of the attack campaigning in Las Vegas. After Mr. Obama’s appearances on the TV shows “The View” and “Late Night with David Letterman” are mentioned, the voice says, “President Obama needs to learn being president isn’t just about being on TV and protecting your job. It’s about leadership.”

The implication here is that President Obama did not do his job, that he did not discharge his responsibilities as president, and that therefore the U.S. mission in Benghazi was attacked.

The ad is sponsored by the Super-PAC “American Crossroads” that is controlled by Karl Rove.

The most recent "American Crossroads" ad hits even harder. The president and the administration deceived the American people about the true nature of the attack.

Known as George W. Bush’s “Brain,” Rove is now Mitt Romney’s Godfather.

His Super-PAC disregards any rules of fair play. This is all about landing blows below the belt and defeating the sitting president by whatever it takes.

In that Rove and Romney have become the Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee of the campaign.

On the stump, Romney blames President Obama’s alleged lack of leadership for the Benghazi tragedy and other problems in the Middle East and elsewhere.

He and his surrogates knock President Obama as the reincarnation of President Carter with the Iranian Hostage Crisis allegedly symptomatic for the former president’s lack toughness in the international arena. They conveniently forget that all hostages returned eventually home unharmed.

Up to now, the public viewed President Obama’s foreign policy handling more positive than Ex-Governor Romney’s foreign policy agenda.

This was a dramatic turn-around from decades of Republicans considered as stronger in foreign policy than Democrats.

Reason enough to launch a vicious attack on Obama and by extension on all Democrats—not the least on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a possible presidential candidate in 2016.

To be sure, Rove and Romney do not want to touch the record of past Democratic and Republican presidents when it comes to terrorism.

But that is precisely what is needed in reaction to their politicization of the Benghazi tragedy.

Mitt Romney: The Whatever-It-Takes-To-Become-President Candidate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his most recent New York Times column, David Brooks celebrated the return of the “moderate” Mitt Romney during the first presidential debate last week and praised the GOP candidate for “breaking with the stereotypes of his party” and “offering a more authentic version of himself.”

Moreover, Brooks wrote, “Having taken this step, he’s broken the spell. Conservatives loved it! They loved that it was effective, and it was effective because Romney could more authentically be the man who (I think) he truly is…”

These statements deserve scrutiny on three counts:  

First, perceptions of the contemporary Republican Party that Mr. Brooks characterizes as “stereotypes” are not simplistic clichés by partisan opponents but the result of massive Tea Party influence in, if not control of the GOP following the 2010 mid-term election.

That has nothing to do with stereotypes. That is political reality.

More importantly, Brooks’ account of the moderate Romney’s return can only mean this: what Mitt Romney told the nation for more than a year, both during the Republican primary battle and the general election campaign, was just a recital of Tea Party orthodoxy.

So, he never believed what he told the rich during fundraising events. He never believed what he told voters?

Second, Brooks tells us that the newly emerging moderate Romney is “a more authentic version” of the candidate. Since authentic means genuine, real, and true, someone or something is either authentic—or not. This is not a more or less quality.   

Third, yes, Mr. Brooks, the Republican base and Tea Party extremists support Romney —the old and the new version-- because they want to defeat President Obama.

They love his debate performance, precisely because it lifted their hope for victory.

But as forRomney beginning" to define the Republican identity," the dominant right wing of the party has no intention to support a “moderate” and “bipartisan” Romney if he becomes president. Just take a look at the communications of Tea Partiers before they made the tactical decision to vote for him as the lesser evil.

And, frankly, there are no indications that Mr. Romney gives a damn about Republican ideology or Republican policy. He obviously can live with a right of center or an extreme right agenda.

As long as he gets what looks like his only goal: he wants to be president. .