How do you encourage the right-wing idiocy that Obama was born in Kenya and thus an illegitimate President, while not getting the tar of hate on yourself? Why, by making a little “joke” about it, like Mitt Romney did today while campaigning in Michigan.
“I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital,” Romney said. “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
The text says I’m one of you. The subtext says my opponent is an “other,’ not like us at all. Romney, who is used to getting away with irresponsible language in his prepared texts, often shows his true self when ad libbing. His prepared texts say that he knows that Obama was born in the United States. His true self says, encourage the crazies to hate Obama and to vote for me.
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Tags: birth certificate, ethics, Kenya, Obama, other, Romney
Ethics Bob 
August 24, 2012 at 2:41 pm |
Yup. Part and parcel of the whole sequence, from “Romney is a felon” to “Romney is a tax cheat,”, and now this, which is arguably worse than either. Good call.
August 24, 2012 at 3:00 pm |
Thanks. By the way, I don’t know anybody who said Romney was a felon. Stephanie Cutter said that his SEC filing said he was CEO of Bain post-1999, and either he was telling the truth to the SEC then or he was committing a felony by a false filing: nasty language but not quite an accusation.
August 25, 2012 at 5:44 am |
[…] Why is it unfair to mention it in jest?” My colleague Ethics Bob Stone has the answer. Bob writes, “How do you encourage the right-wing idiocy that Obama was born in Kenya and thus an […]
August 25, 2012 at 1:02 pm |
I disagree. That comment could easily be made by someone with a sense of humor that can laugh at life’s ironies, whether those ironies align for or against us. This is more in line with the character of Romney that I have witnessed thus far.
August 25, 2012 at 1:10 pm |
It could be, but given the circumstances it’s very doubtful. And did you notice, the crowd cheered the “joke.” They didn’t laugh. They got the reminder that Obama isn’t like us, he’s an “other.”