Wales2004

I don't know if I'll have the patience to watch the DNC but I cannot seem to watch more than a couple of seconds of the RNC. Besides the usual bunch of rubbish coming out of their mouths including the lack of enthusiasm for their own candidate, is this whole business about how they can work with Democrats and how Barack Obama does not know how to work with them. It seems to me that he initially bent over backwards giving in to their general idiocy and how do you compromise with a group of people who made it their mission not to work with you at all. The amounf of venom that they've shown him is over and beyond their usual contempt of Democrats and I would hate to be any of them when it comes time to pay the piper or whatever it is they believe in of a karmic nature.

Oooh I thought their theme was Obama has to go even if you don't like Mitt Romney ye have no choice but to vote for him so that Barack Obama will be gone and we can all sleep better at night. Seriously. And if they're harping on We built this...it's apparently because Obama had the nerve to tell them that they didn't build it on their own. I don't even know what he meant and I'm not sure I care but I do know the man in the first ad received loans from the big bad government by his own admission. I listened briefly to some fantasy about how the small business owner wants someone who is going to congratulate him which I suppose is meant to exclude Barack Obama. I turned it off because I'm pretty sure Mr.Personality isn't going to be all man of the people. Oh and I built this message all own so I reckon I qualify to be a Republican now.

This is going to be the most magical event ever. First they are trotting out as many speakers with hispanic and/or Latino background as possible with the belief that they will somehow win the votes of that demographic. Then Ann Romney is going to win all the women of the nation over with 20 minutes of how good her husband is and what a hard working mother she is. Pure magic. No, as far as the outrage goes. I don't even think the instances are comparable. I believe that people were upset with Melissa Reeves over an issue that is important to them. Samuel L. Jackson and Ellen Barkin are not promoting an issue, they're wishing pain, injury, and death on a group of people. I know that people may have wished the same on Melissa Reeves but it all stemmed from a specific issue which is a bit more complex than the general death wish. I am not in favor or wishing people dead because you don't agree with them on whatever issues but people have a right to their feelings. I do find it inappropriate to express these feelings in public. I don't get all this public thinking out loud. Eventually people and their motor mouths (via their fingers on twitter) will cause themselves enough problems that they will learn not to share every unkind thought they have.

While it is true that older children are virtually ignored, it's not true about babies. There is a high demand for white babies. Black babies are at the bottom of the preference list and considering how unwanted they are, it's sad when people complain about celebrities adopting black babies. Now I can understand feeling dismayed about international adoptions when there are so many children here.

Besides finding a way to further reduce his taxes, where does Mitt Romney even stand on anything? He pretty much says whatever will work at the moment and tries to laugh everything off. Reince Priebus was on with Jansing implying that Mitt Romney did want Todd Akin to drop out. I guess they didn't want to include that in Mr. Romney's written statement.

Even if Todd Akins were somehow on an island by himself, it does not change the fact that he and Paul Ryan agree on the outlandish offensive term "forcible rape." He should be interviewed about it and if he answers ambiguously then it ought to be brought up in the debates. People like that disgust me. If their wives who happen to be over 18, were drugged and raped, they would seriously be able to look into those womens' eyes and tell them they weren't raped in the same way that a woman who tries to fend off her attacker was raped because they lacked the physical capacity to fight back. I get that they are against abortion and don't want it publicly funded but don't minimize the violation of a woman's body or strip her of her dignity in order to get what you want.

I'm glad to see this thread so lively. I am not too smart or swift and yet there are so many politicians in political office who seem much dumber. For the sake of argument, if Joe Biden was not talking about Wall Street but in fact implying that Mitt Romney wanted to enslave just the black members of that audience then this is primarily about Republicans thinking the Democrats need to pay for Joe Biden saying this. If he comes out and apologizes then will they run it in an ad campaign showing him saying what he did and then apologizing for his choice of words and what it implies. It would appear that the black members of that audience would need to demand an apology from Joe Biden. Otherwise, Joe Biden is supposed to apologize to Mitt Romney for what exactly? I'll jump into murky waters and say this because no matter what Jeremiah Wright said, as far as I know, he didn't twist the Bible to support his anger towards this country or for the way he feels he has been treated after putting his life on the line during his military service. The snippet I heard that was deemed ultra inflammatory was that whatsoever you sow you reap. And people might not like the idea of his or anyone else saying that America is a sinful nation that paid for its sins because he really should not have used such a tragedy to do so. Pat Robertson took a tragedy that was nowhere near the level of 9/11 but a tragedy nonetheless and claimed that Hurricane Katrina was a result of the sinful nature of the residents of New Orleans. People condemn Barack Obama for having sat in that church for 20 years even though he's really supposed to be a socialist Muslim and his father is now Frank something or the other, according to the latest lunacy. Yet Brigham Young turned what was essentially an egalitarian church into one with a racist policy possibly because he had a problem with a black man who had multiple white wives but regardless, he twisted the Bible to do it and said that God darkened Cain's skin (turned him black) as punishment for killing Abel. I've never read anywhere in the Bible about race and Cain's punishment was that he was banished from Eden and no one was allowed to kill him or they would be cursed. This is right up there with Noah's son Ham being the reason that it was alright to make Africans slaves because somehow Noah apparently only had one black son and the rest I assume had to be white. Yet, Hebrew children had already been enslaved by the Egyptians and there's not a word about how they were black. But this is the kind of nonsense that people sit around a believe and use to justify their ill treatment of others. I doubt the Mormon Church would have backed off of this in 1978 had it not been for the fact that they wanted to expand into Brazil. Then they had a problem and a revelation from God. I'm glad that they corrected their doctrine. Mitt Romney may love everybody and maybe he never agreed with that doctrine but he implicitly supported it. Jeremiah Wright wasn't acting according to any doctrine and he stepped down as a result of the negative attention he brought to that specific congregation which did not constitute all the churches of that denomination. This is not a big enough of a deal for me to favor Mitt Romney over Joe Biden....especially when he could have directly addressed what Joe Biden said and named him instead of playing the "Barack Obama is an angry man full of hate and we can send him and his anger and hate back to Chicago" card. Okay so we clearly disagree on this... I was referring to the clean comment when I mentioned Joe Biden in my previous post and of course, there was Harry Reid's "negro dialect" comment. I don't recall hearing the 7-Eleven comment. Race in this country is a convoluted mess wrought with double-standards and people usually point fingers instead of giving it rational thought. In my book there are racists and there are racialists. Racists mean to do harm and racialists generally don't. Joe Biden is a product of his generation and let's be realistic, people do seem to be stunned when they encounter black people who can put an entire sentence together without any grammatical errors. Those kind of people are seen as the exception and not the rule. Two films that I think address stereotypes well are Finding Forrester and Crash. Race discussions might be more productive when people get to the point where they can admit that they have biases. We all do. We're told things when we are young, we absorb things, and we very seldom question the logic. That's how come people can sit in a church and believe whatever the minister, priest, preacher (or authoritative leader) is telling them without giving it a second thought. Black Americans can be just as guilty of perpetuating stereotypes about themselves as white Americans are yet the focus is very seldom on that. You cannot have this "honest conversation" if white Americans want to keep claiming that Barack Obama made this nation post-racial and black people wanting to keep blaming every white American for slavery. Allen West has said a whole lot more than that and I doubt that his party will rebuke him for it. Maybe he's one of those blacks that Ann Coulter says the Republicans have. Imagine if America had a viable third party which was moderately conservative and not at all racist or xenophobic.

I want to add this regarding race and politics: I believe it has less to do with a candidate's position on race and more to do with the types of voters they are trying to attract. What kind of voter would you be trying to attract by "accusing" (as if there is something terribly wrong with this) John McCain of having a black baby? Basically candidates stand up and pander to voters that they think might be afraid of family members being deported, voters who they think are racist and don't want to see "minorities" prosper, voters who love unions, voters who hate unions, etc. Does it necessarily mean that the candidate believes in all these things? No. It's just a question of how far they will go and what they will say to get elected.

One of the things that I don't like about either party is the general inability to admit when they do things of which they will readily accuse the other party. I've heard Joe Biden and Harry Reid make racist/racialist or at best questionable statements that have gotten swept under the rug because people who usually make a fuss about things like that gave them a free pass. During the 2008 primaries, some Democrats revealed how backwards they are on the issue of race but I do distinguish between malicious intent and what's politcially beneficial. I believe, for instance, that Hilary Clinton made her statement which implied that only white people worked hard (blue collars) because it was politically beneficial and she didn't anticipate that since she and her husband had such goodwill with their black supporters that it would have caused any type of hysteria at all. But it did. Some people like to pick and choose when to get offended. What Joe Biden said the other day should not have caused any problems at all unless perhaps he was speaking to an entirely black audience. In fact, if he had said "we" instead of "y'all" there would be no place to go with it. The Republicans have been all over the place using the word "unshackled" and it's not a big deal because apparently they don't have to worry about black people in their venues it seems. But the fact that people associate chains with black people (and I already know about America's slave history) is very telling because it means that this idea of black people and chains is destined to follow black people around in this country forever even if they have no slave ancestry. It also means that black immigrants to this country are going to be bound by something that doesn't even relate to them simply because people want to wear the past. I've seen prisoners in chains and no one can make that connection but they suppose that if there are black people in a room with white people and someone implies chains in a metaphorical sense that it must simply apply to the black people. I have seen the movies with slaves in shackles (otherwise I would not have that image) but I don't relate slaves to chains because I've seen far too many other movies where people where shackled as a form of imprisonment and it had nothing to do with slavery. I have no idea how black people became associated with monkeys and I don't care to know because it's ridiculous as well as black Americans being specifically assoicated with watermelon. As for fried chicken--it seems to me that the most popular face in this nation associated with it is Col. Sanders and yet it's not just a southern thing. That tells you a lot about how ignorant people are and how willing people are to embrace the ignorance. Anyway, I may be off base but what you seem to be doing is wanting everyone to acknowledge that Joe Biden was race baiting while only acknowledging that Rick Santorum did it. I pointed out how Newt Gingrich constantly suggests that only black people need to work for welfare. I acknowledge that there are black people who have scammed the welfare system and that there are white people who have done it. Does the fact that Ronald Reagan only chose to point out an instance where someone black did it make him a racist? Maybe not, but does it make it seem more likely that he was using her to win votes from people who don't like black people? Yes. He could have easily told the story of a white woman who defrauded the welfare system or told the story of both, but in this nation all that matters is that someone black did it. There isn't any way around that. I didn't even mention food stamps because even if some might find it inflammatory, I don't think it's an example of what I've been pointing out. I don't recall anyone making it seem as if only black people get food stamps because I think the point there is to illustrate that he has devastated the whole nation. Since I'm non-partisan my honest reaction at this point to Joe Biden is so what??? It's not as if the Republicans haven't made it their mission to make sure that they presented road blocks for President Obama from day one. It isn't as if they've all treated him with respect ("you lie" during a state of the union address and Jan Brewer wagging her finger at him on the tarmac). And you missed the whole Mitt Romney reference to him as being full of anger and hate. The Republicans fight dirty. So what if the Democrats decided to get down in the mud with them. It's like the Republicans came to the party with a bucket of mud and the Democrats snatched it from them and said let me show you how it's done and the Republicans are running around all outraged now because the bully stole their mud from them. Well they shouldn't have brought mud in the first place. Now they're all stuck on how "divisive" the Democrats are when they spent so much time trying to paint everyone who doesn't share their views as "un-American" as if that isn't divisive.

I am not sure why you think I was trying to spin anything because I said that race is politically beneficial to both parties. Why would I need to spin the facts? The Republican party does have zero credibility and let's not pretend that the couple of exanples I mentioned are all that was ever done. There have been a number of instances where Republicans have depicted Barack Obama as a monkey. If I recall correctly, the reason Michael Steele ended up in that chair position was because Chip Saltzman distributed "Barack the Magic Negro" disc. How many times have Republican candidates stood up and suggested that black people want free stuff (as if only black people want free stuff)? Mitt Romney did that recently. Then there's the constant reference to black people and welfare and implying that only black welfare recipients are undeserving of welfare because they are all lazy people who don't want to work (Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich) and good old Ronald Reagan's welfare queen because only good for nothing black people cheat the welfare system. How is it that Joe Biden makes the statement yet Mitt Romney turns around and refers to Barack Obama as the one who is angry and full of hate? That characterization is a bit over the top as a response to Joe Biden. Even if Doug Wilder and every other black American are in agreement, it still doesn't make the Rebublicans any more credible on the subject. Both parties are generally full of it when it comes to their faux outrage but Republicans routinely reference the lazy black welfare recipient in order to make all those honest hard working Americans think that these shiftless individuals are taking their hard earned cash. Even when Newt Gingrich admitted there were more white people on welfare than black people, he didn't ever suggest that any of those white welfare recipients need to work or might be getting money they didn't deserve.

I disagree with you regarding the double standard. Joe Biden ran in the primaries and it was no secret that he voted in favor of the war so there was nothing for Barack Obama to hide nor any need to remind voters of their opposing views. Paul Ryan's budget is a possibility unlike a vote that was already cast. I don't know if that vote was a big reason why Barack Obama defeated Hilary Clinton. I think the Clinton's arrogance played a major part in their defeat. They didn't take his candidacy seriously and they ended up making some costly mistakes including playing racial politics which backfired on them. Part of the reason I don't believe race in America is going to progress significantly is because it is financially beneficial to some and politically beneficial to others. Both parites have relied on it for years but the Republicans are the ones who are usually more obvious about it. The Democrats just generally get to fall back on the idea that they will get minorities to vote for them. The Republicans are forced to use a lot more coded phrases because of Barack Obama's racial background. They're not going to come right out and tell the racist xenophobes to whom they want to appeal to vote white so they remind them by referring to Barack Obama as foreign and un-American and they use people like John Sununu who was born in Cuba and is of Palestinian descent to do it which says a lot about how easy that part of their constituency is to manipulate. IMO, the Republican party has zero credibility in making claims about racially-charged remarks since they engage in it more effectively than the Democrats. This has nothing to do with Republicans trying to tell black people they should be offended. Black people are not a homogenous group of people so not every black person is going to see this the same way and the sooner people get rid of the "black group think" idea, the better because people won't be as easily manipulated due to being easily distracted because getting mad because you think a white man is telling you what to think and feel on top of all the other things of which you think white people are guilty is nothing but a useless distraction and keeps too many people from accomplishing much. Racial politics has very little to do with race and everything to do with emotions that are used to manipulate the ignorant masses, misguided religious zealots, and the idealists into voting a certain way. At the end of the day, a rich Republican is not going to care any more about the poor white citizens he used to get where he was going than he does about the black ones he put down to do it., Mitt Romney is just upset that the Democrats are not rolling over for him. The Republicans need to be quiet about running Hilary Clinton as V.P. because they know very well if she ended up on the ticket they will be gleefully slinging mud at her. Joe Biden doesn't come across as cold and calculating so he can cut them up in a delightful non-malicious way.

I don't know how to embed youtube videos but here's one I came across on HP (a site I know I need to stop visiting) where Mitt Romney accuses Barack Obama of a war on religion: I felt all warm and fuzzy inside when i saw the dead pope and read that Lech Walesa endorses that message. I mean now it's all perfectly clear....

While I find the ad on the deceptive side, even though the man in the ad stands by it, I don't find it the most disgusting. I cannot think of an ad to fit that description because I usually just see the ads as misleading. I don't recall whether the McCain has a black baby was an ad but whatever it was disgusting fits the bill for that, imo. I personally abhor the designation of community to a group of people who do not all live in the same neighborhood. I know you didn't come up with it but it's silly for an entire segment of the population to refer to themselves and to be referred to as a community since the only reason they are being lumped together is race-based and for no other reason than that. They are Americans who happen to be black and all of them aren't in love with Barack Obama either. Morgan Freeman recently referred to him as the first biracial president which is accurate unless one of the other presidents happened to be. If it weren't for the racist one-drop rule then black Americans would not have been in a position to become the gatekeepers. I'll abandon this for now in favor of this: The fact that there are Republicans who are unhappy that Mitt Romney is Mormon has already been used to explain his previous failed attempts to get the Republican nomination and has already been mentioned as a problem for him this time around. Yesterday I watched a show with a liberal agenda and there were leaked memos making reference to this. We happen to live in a country where racism trumps discrimination on the basis of religion. In fact the only religious discrimination likely to gain attention is if the perceived victim is a Muslim. If Romney loses are we even going to be certain that the majority of the people who voted against him did so because they actually knew he was a Mormon amd were dead set against it. The racial prejudice isn't so hard to discern. It's part of a corner stone of the Republican primaries. Accusing McCain of having a black baby to ensure that racist white voters would steer clear of him. Newt Gingrich boasting about going to the NAACP and telling them "African-Americans" essentially shouldn't get free money of the backs of hard working white Americans. Mitt Romney's not so coded language about how foreign and un-American Barack Obama's policies are. His plan to restore Anglo-Saxon relations which went belly up. And now his opposition to the welfare waiver that he favored when he was governor and his attempt to take a page out of Newt Gingrich's book and in fact using him as a surrogate to try to pretend that welfare is doing more harm to this nation than corporate greed. Those candidates only mention black people to agitate racists who they hope will run out to the polls and vote for them and in turn those ignorant people get nothing because they will never see them as anything but a guaranteed vote.

I saw that piece yesterday but I didn't waste my time watching that rubbish. I thought it was a tad bit funny that they want to take self-hatred to a whole other level. The other slightly humorous piece is the attempt to link Barack Obama to slavery through his mother. Now I'm not saying that it is impossible for his mother to have any black ancestors but the original slave seems like a real stretch to me.

I keep getting distracted so I hope my response makes sense. I try not to employ double standards and when I do I will usually admit to it upfront but feel free to point it out to me if I do. One of the unfortunate consequences of America and race is that when b/w people are involved in anything deemed a controversy, people tend to reach for race as the reason. This is a major reason why the nation seems to have taken a step backwards on the issue--another being there is no incentive to progress because race is a highly profitable business for some (e.g, Al Sharpton, Pat Buchanan, Michael Eric Dyson, Rush Limbaugh) and it's politically beneficial to certain Republicans appealing to "real Americans." So yes, if you say something perceived as negative about Barack Obama then you'll either be labeled a racist or a sell-out. My opinions of the candidates as it pertains to Christianity or their choice of a religion has nothing at all to do with whether or not I think they ought to hold a political office. Christianity and politics are two separate things as far as I am concerned. If they bring Christianity up then I will more than likely formulate an opinion on whatever they say. I don't see the snippet of what Jeremiah Wright said as comparable to a church's actual doctrine. If you tell me that the church had a racially discrimiatory policy then I would agree but Jeremiah Wright is clearly not the church. Furthermore, I haven't heard 20 years of his sermons so I have no idea about what he was preaching during Barack Obama's 20 years there. But there is somewhat of a line between racialism (of which I am certain he is guilty) and racism. That said, I don't see Barack Obama in any better light than Mitt Romney when it comes to his professed Christianity either. Just because I wouldn't join the Mormon Church doesn't mean that I don't credit them with moving forward. I don't exclude Mitt Romney from being a viable candidate on the basis of his relgion (my issues with him are not about his being a Mormon it begun with his attitude towards the poor) so I won't do the same to Harry Reid. I don't know enough about him to have a real opinion on his leadership skills but he seems weak offhand. I do take issue with the Democrats for hypocritically allowing him to skate on that racialist statement he made about Barack Obama being able to communicate in the negro dialect. But that's a tricky one because I know there are black people who agree with him.

His word doesn't mean a thing as far as I can tell because he's wishy washy. I don't see him as a man of conviction but I don't think his religion is a factor because ultimately money is his God. I love a number of pop songs about money including Michael Jackson's but no matter what people want to pretend, money and Christianity do not go hand in hand. Mitt Romney should not have any issue at all with paying whatever taxes are required of him if he's a devout Christian and he should know that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to Heaven. He may have pulled over and wept when he heard that his church was ending discrimination but the fact that he was content to attend a church that denied the priesthood to persons of African descent says a lot about him. But let's just celebrate the fact that Clint Eastwoond endorsed him. That ought to put him way over the top now. It's sad to me that the choice is between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. The latter is the better option in terms of international relations hands down. i'm not good with the domestic pandering. One segment of his speech last week to the Urban League reminded me of Billy Cosby's 2004 speech. Many books were written condemning Mr. Cosby. So far I've only seen one unhappy camper express her disappointment with it. So he created some useless African-American education initiative because what's going to help the kids is another group of adults sitting around talking about the problem. At least Bill Cosby suggested Hooked on Phonics. Teaching little kids that "they" is not a pronoun shoudln't be that hard but in America it is and in America we can pretend that it's some special language and mediocrity is a condition suffered by the only poor people in America because poverty is race conscious. On a lighter note, the strip clubs are ready for the Republicans and the "coffee" memo has been sent.

After reading this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mitt-romney/9424524/Mitt-Romney-would-restore-Anglo-Saxon-relations-between-Britain-and-America.html I really wish Mitt Romney would stand somewhere in the middle of the West End (London) and make a speech about restoring "Anglo-Saxon" relations. In fact he should share this with the American public as well.

I'm not trying to preach. That's not my intention at all. I was just thinking out loud basically. Now it's out of my system and I am sorry if I annoyed you.

I know it's a tv show but reality shows seem to be scripted to some extent. I'm not sure that it makes a difference because most of the praise I've read about Tyler Perry is that he "gets black women" and he tells "their storires" so even if this is him telling another story, I still believe if people are going to get mad about how black women are depicted on reality shows then it's not all that much different from complaining about black women being stereotyped in movies or scripted tv shows. The reality for me is that people can choose what they want to watch so it's hypocritical to attack one show and not the other for doing essentially the same type of thing. Granted, VH1's shows do this on a regular basis but they seem to be equal opportunity in terms of women behaving badly. I recall Roland Martin complaining that this show had higher ratings than the NAACP Image Awards last year and how disappointing it was that black people would rather watch that than an awards show with the best that black people had to offer. Really....... I get when people say that others died for the right to ride in the front of the bus but what if the real prize is being able to make a choice? When is it okay to advocate personal responisbility?

Politics is a very nasty business and since I've grown up, it no longer fascinates me. The ideal start out fresh and ready to change the world and then they end up like Barack Obama. I can't stand his pandering but he seems to be able to pull off with a whole lot more style than Mitt Romney who simply appears to be a major flake blowing whichever way the wind is at the moment. I will begrudgingly give Barack Obama and his surrogates credit for being able to play at the same level the Republicans do. He seemingly tried to compromise with them on many levels only to be kicked in the face and for Mitch McConnell and John Boehner to show how "tough" they are. I am sure they decided he'd be a complete pushover. The way I see it, since Mitt Romney knows that the people he needs to embrace him are no fans of his religion, he's forced to not remind them. Apparently he's a hard pill for the so called "religious right" to swallow. The fact that Christians proudly segregate themselves is another thing altogether. I'm waiting for the label of the "true American Christian" to surface.

This is neither here nor there but I hope the people who are so outraged over this show are also bothered by Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse. A wife setting her husband's car with his clothes in it (Waiting to Exhale rip-off) on fire then antagonizing him while he's eating and attacking him with an iron cast skillet because he won't take the bait, isn't any better. I haven't heard about the online petitions or concern.

We're on different planes concerning this topic. My point is Timothy Geithner failing to pay his taxes on time is a more relatable issue than being so wealthy that you get to hide your money overseas so that you can avoid paying taxes on it. Politicians seem to be generally hypocritical so I'm not at all moved by that. If we start opening the doors on all the politicians in D.C., we will find plenty of questionable financial practices so finger pointing beyond the two primary candidates could become quite messy. You can call me hypocritical for seeing a difference in a man who is not running for President, failing to pay his taxes on time and a man running for President, who proclaims love for his country and who probably sees himself as a "real American," hiding his money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid the great American tax system. At least the IRS can make one man pay. The other has hidden his treasure from them altogether (and I am no fan of taxes but I would never hide my money to avoid them nor do I desire to have more money than I could ever spend). My issue with the government has nothing to do with paying taxes to help fellow citizens, it's the inefficiency of certain governmental agencies and frivolous waste that could have been used to help citizens in need instead of fueling some greedy official's personal vehicle, et al. What's hypocritical to me is the fact that certain politicians will label themselves as Christians to appeal to "lost soul" voters but money is really their God. The Bible clearly states that you cannot serve two masters.

Unless Timothy Geithner did not pay his taxes at all then I don't see the point of bringing him up. It's irresponsible of him, especially in his position but it's nothing to which a segment of the voting population won't be able to relate. A significant number of the voting population cannot relate to Mitt Romney in terms of his wealth. He'd seem ridiculous whining about the IRS having to go after TG when it's not going to change the fact that he's got foreign tax shelters. It looks terrible someone to claim he loves America so much that he wants to be the President, yet he's trying to minimize the amount of taxes he pays by sending his money outside of America. If he does end up releasing more tax returns then he'd be better off not trying to drag anyone else into it. How did it work out for him when he tried to drag John Kerry's wife into it? Last I checked, she wasn't running for President and had no obligation to release her tax returns. No one should say a word about his precious Ann but John Kerry's wife is fair game. John Kerry's not even his opponent. His response to those who bring up his dad releasing 12 years of returns is to be a big baby. I'm not a fan of the Democrats but the Republicans do a good job of making the Democrats look reasonable and sane. It's great that John McCain stands up against some of the insanity but the fact that it persists is not a good look for the Republicans. The Democrats have their spaced out Nancy Pelosi but the Republicans have weeping John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, crazy Michelle Bachman, Alan West and the list goes on. Right now I'm guessing that Mitt Romney is the problem and not his advisers. Maybe he gets some bad advice but the tax return business seems to be his decision. They can't make him produce them if he doesn't want to do it. He seems to think that everyone is so dumb that he can ease on into the White House but he's underestimating appeal and he lacks that big time. He's patronizing in a way that's costly to him.

It's kind of sad that the Republicans choose to go this route. I can't count how many times I've heard that George Romney released 12 years of returns when he ran for President. I found it puzzling that he ran considering he was born in Mexico. He subsequently dropped out, possibly to avoid that as an issue. The Romneys are pretty good at making criticism of them all inclusive. When Hilary Rosen correctly pointed out that Ann Romney had never had a 9-5 job (and I consider motherhood real work but not a job), Ann Romney claimed it was an attack on all mothers and people went along with it. Now, Mitt Romney claims that Barack Obama was attacking Steve Jobs and all these other men who are not Mitt Romney and had nothing to do with what was said. They're both awfully whiney. Maybe they should watch how many party members are swiping and Mitt Romney and making it clear that they really don't like him either. All that's missing from this show would be a mutiny at the RNC.

Once again we learn that Barack Obama was born in the foreign nation of Hawaii where he was smoking stuff and he's gasp un-American. John Sununu, on the other hand, was born in the great American state of Havana. Mitt Romney is already not very likeable. He should lay off the coded "un-American" label. He's really going to help turn Barack Obama into a sympathetic figure. Insanity seems to have taken a bigger hold on the Republicans lately.