Incoherent Spluttering

[sarahmichelef]

Mitt Romney, at the Republican Presidential debate last night:

I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.  This Presidential candidate does not believe in habeas corpus for suspected terrorists.  So watch what you say, lest he pick you to be one of the folks in the new, doubled Guantanamo.  He thinks it's a GREAT THING that you won't get a lawyer.  (Transcript of the quote swiped from Think Progress.)

Video of the question & responses from McCain, Giuliani, and Romney (streaming quicktime) is here, compliments of Crooks and Liars.

Comments

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've heard that bit repeated on NPR. it really robs me of words - i sit here and shake and clench my fists and want to hit. something. hard.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

I was in the car when I first heard it so I just screamed obscenities at the top of my lungs.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

The thing to always keep in mind about Mitt Romney, is that there's not really any particularly strong reason to believe he means anything he says. You can always be about 75%-90% certain that he's saying it only because it's what he thinks the segments of his audience whose opinion he happens to care about this week most want to hear. He's running for the Republican Presidential nomination? Then he's the hawkiest hawk that ever hawked, and he'll out-fascist Giuliani any day of the week. He's running for governor of Massachusetts? Then he's a Bill Weld Republican, a smart manager, who'll cut taxes and spending and make government more efficient, but stay out of people's private lives. He's running for Senate in Massachusetts? Then he can do more good for gay people than Ted Kennedy can.

Mitt Romney is completely unfamiliar with the concept of sincerity.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

This is all very true, but it still appalls me that 1) there is a segment of the population to whom that idea appeals and 2) anybody would actually try to court the vote of that segment of the population.

And yeah, Romney's probably pretty damn dizzy from all the flip-flopping he's done over the last 15 or so years. Plus the altitude change when he moved back to MA to run for Gov. (Don't get me started on the questions about Reich's residency when Romney's wasn't questioned at all...)

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

Just your Liberal Media at work.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

on 1 - the amount of applause that those remarks received just sickened me.

[susan402.livejournal.com]

ugh.

So watch what you say, lest he pick you to be one of the folks in the new, doubled Guantanamo.

That was a nice comment. Not enough people think like that.