Two Minds

It may not be a surprise to some of you, but it was to me, how small-minded Mitt Romney is. For him to suggest that President Obama bought re-election by providing “gifts” to certain portions of the electorate is more than just poor sportsmanship. It’s offensive on multiple levels, and it’s exactly the message the GOP doesn’t want to be putting out right now. It’s no secret that the Obama campaign targeted women, minorities and young people to bring them to the polls. But it’s also no secret that Romney simply didn’t have the ground game to win. And Mr. Romney himself is apparently unable to grasp the fact that minority votes may very well have been bought with ideas, not gifts. Slip of the tongue? Poor choice of words? I think not.

There are small minds, but then there may be deceptive ones. I think most of us still haven’t sorted out this Benghazi business. Now we’re hearing sources say that General Petraeus, as head of the CIA, knew instantly that the U.S. ambassador was killed in a pre-planned al-Qaeda attack on Sept. 11, not by some angry mob. Whom did Petraeus tell? If U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was given bad information about the Benghazi incident before she talked about it publicly, who gave her that information, and why? Who benefited – and what exactly was the benefit? Nothing seems to compute, so far.

If lipstick’s being put on a pig here, who’s the makeup artist? Perhaps the congressional hearings on all this will clear things up. It’s impossible to come to a conclusion about it, based on what’s out there right now, but there are two choices, neither of them good. Either this thing was handled incompetently -- or flat-out deceptively. Guess we just have to stay tuned.