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Thursday, 02 February 2012 19:50

Written by Reg Henry

The day after he won the Florida primary, Mitt Romney became a little unbuttoned in his speech, no doubt because of exuberance, and said the following on CNN:

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich. They're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling," he said.

You would have think he had just endorsed Jerry Sandusky as his running mate.

The left is all over him because he supposedly hates the poor. The right is all over him because he showed too much sympathy for the poor — hey, he wants to repair the safety net which will only encourage dependency.

I think both sides are wrong. It was a dumb thing to say politically, of course, because everything today is taken out of context — and both sides do it.

That's the trouble with the modern political wars. The largest conclusions are taken from the smallest utterances without any regard for context or even the rest of the statement. Obama has been a victim of this and now Mitt is the victim.

If I were a political consultant, I would tell my clients to say nothing but pap that has been approved beforehand by a committee, or else have teams of mimes spell out the candidate's positions (we couldn't have French ones, that would become an issue of its own).
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I see the Occupy Pittsburgh protesters in the park have been give the old heave-ho. This was inevitable and I think the court did them a favor. Their movement had run out of gas some time ago, despite a few rear-guard actions in places like Oakland, California.

Having sought the help of the court, they should have the good grace to accept the court's ruling and leave peacefully. After all, they would have expected the corporation to do so if the ruling had gone their way.

On our Web site story, this sentence caught my eye: "At most, they [the protesters] said, they would "rickroll" — play Rick Astley's 1987 hit "Never Going to Give You Up" at high volume as a form of protest.

Yeah, that will make the Establishment quake in their boots. When it comes to being pathetic in a juvenile way, there's no one who can match the woolly-headed left. No one, I say.

I know, I know, you think I am an old reactionary on this subject. Maybe, but I'm right.

                                                          •
I have been working two jobs the last two weeks — deputy scribbler and oped editor because my colleague Greg Victor, the real oped editor, has been away. So I am very glad to tell you that tomorrow I am taking the day off.

Keep blogging but I won't see you back in this space until Monday. Occupy barstools and don't say anything that can be taken out of context.