Things a quitter knows about surrender.
I hesitate to call anybody an “idiot.” This word holds a certain gravity in my mind; it has such a cold stone finality to it that brooks no argument of any kind. Like large bullets at point-blank range, the word, as well as “stupid,” feels clean and irreversible in its certainty.
I know a lot of people who I vehemently disagree with, and I know a lot of people who display incompetence at certain tasks, and I know people who are both of these things. I still don’t like to say that they are “idiots.” When I use that word, or if I were to say somebody were “stupid,” I feel it has to mean something. I save that word the way I used to save words like “love” and “hate.”
I have grown to realize that many people I would once have simply dismissed as “idiots” were really just people who had different experiences, and who in fact were incredibly skilled and intelligent about many subjects in which I was the idiot. That is, there was something I could learn from them. And so I try not to judge along such harsh lines anymore. Even if I cannot fathom why somebody might believe something, I take a few deep breaths and let the cry of “Idiot!” stay in its kennel.
Today, Willard “Mitt” Romney threw in the towel in his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee for the 2008 election, finally realizing that one cannot simply keep throwing his own money into a campaign that fails to win any substantial challenge and hope that the funds alone will buy you a nomination. His concession speech, which his faithful followers and his newly flush rival John McCain have heralded as among his best, is the sort of speech that could possibly have, ironically, saved his campaign had he delivered something like it earlier in the process.
Romney painted his defeat as a noble self-sacrifice, declaring that he was doing this to make sure that the GOP would prevail against either Senators Obama or Clinton.
“In this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror…Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat and declare defeat. And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child’s play. About this, I have no doubt.”
And you know, I’ve dealt with this rhetoric from the venomous mouths on the radio, the bullies on FOX News, the 29-Percenters online, and to finally hear it as the parting shots from this dishonest, dog-abusing hypocrite…I’ve absolutely had it with this shit.
Consider the basic premise of what this snake is selling on his way out the door: that either potential Democratic presidential nominee is chomping at the bit to surrender to al-Qaida, to allow terrorists to invade America and subjugate us all to their violent, twisted strain of Islam. That their first act as Commander-in-Chief will be to declare terrorists the victors and to beg these terrorists to please, please, please don’t hurt us too badly.
Mitt, and every other vicious bastard spouting the same warnings, is asserting that America’s liberals will be perfectly content with having their loved ones slaughtered, that they are themselves resigned to being beheaded on videotape as a warning to all infidels. That Hillary would hand over Chelsea, that Barack would sacrifice Michelle, for no other discernable reason except that it’s “what a Democrat would do”?
Does that. Make.
ANY?!
Sense to anybody at all?
I have no way of knowing how the next President will conduct the war against al-Qaida, whether they will be pulled along by the same momentum that has failed us for the past six-plus years, or whether they will be forced to adopt a strategy that only makes the situation marginally better. But I am pretty damn sure that neither Clinton or Obama has the mental instability required to consider negotiating terms of our “surrender” to al-Qaida.
I don’t know if Mitt actually believed the nonsense he was speaking from the podium as he himself decided to quit a fight with much lower stakes than war.
But if he believed it, he’s an idiot of monumental proportions.
And anybody who fell for this ridiculous line of thinking? I’m sorry, but they’re idiots too. Stupid, stupid, idiots.
Creative Control 