Romney's bent sense of patriotism

By Richard K. Barry

Here's a line from a speech given recently by likely GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

There was a time -- not so long ago -- when each of us could walk a little taller and stand a little straighter because we had a gift that no one else in the world shared. We were Americans.

Here's what Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog had to say about it:

Let me tell you what would happen if there was a Republican incumbent president and a Democratic candidate said this: we'd spend the next several months talking about why the Democrat no longer believes Americans should take pride in their country. The candidate's patriotism would be routinely questioned and he'd be asked repeatedly why he thinks it is no longer true the American people should hold their heads high.

And yet there was Mitt Romney, effectively arguing that the only way to have national pride is to give him power.

But more than that is the obnoxious presumption that anyone failing to share Romney's politics, whatever the hell they are this week, doesn't love America and is responsible for her decline.

We have been living with this shit for a while. They say they want their country back. They imply that the 52.9% of voting citizens who made Barack Obama President of the United States somehow stole America from its rightful owners. And until they get it back, they argue, we can do nothing but hang our heads in shame.

You expect this kind of crap at a Tea Party rally, not from someone running for the presidency. Oh wait, there's no way to tell what to expect from Mitt Romney.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

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