Letter: 'Ken doll' Mitt's stands don't hold water

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August 3, 2012

Letter: 'Ken doll' Mitt's stands don't hold water

Anonymous Gloucester Daily Times The Gloucester Daily Times Fri Aug 03, 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

To the Editor:

Well, it didn’t take long for Mitt Romney’s global debut train to go off the rails again after his initial Olympics faux pas in Britain. It derailed in Israel and, finally, in Poland as well.

First, in Israel he said he would “respect” an Israeli strike against Iran.

That comment must have sent shivers up the spines of not just the Iranians, but also much of the U.S. military establishment, and friends and foes of the U.S. alike — all of whom believe a strike against Iran, by either Israel or the U.S., would likely spark a much wider war in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

He also insulted the Palestinians by suggesting their languishing economy has to do with their culture, while Israel’s much stronger economy is the result of “prudence and providence.”

This frequently off-message candidate also praised Israel for being so much more successful at controlling health care costs and making health care available to virtually all of its citizens than the U.S. has been.

Now, wouldn’t you think some member of Romney’s “gaffe staff” would have informed our aging “Ken Doll” candidate that the reason Israel is able to do that is because it has a centralized, government run, health care system that is almost identical to the universal, single-payer system liberals like Ted Kennedy long advocated for — and conservative Republicans, not to mention the private health insurance industry, have long disparaged as “socialized medicine”?

Apparently, the answer to that question is “no.”

Then in Poland, his anti-union sentiments angered the members of the union that was key to the toppling of Poland’s communist regime.

This Romney campaign, from the candidate on down, is looking more and more like “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” than it does “The Magnificent Seven.”

Poor Mitt, he may have made a lot of money, but he obviously has the social and political skills of a porcupine, despite his lovely wife’s assertion that he deserves to be president, and she First Lady, because, as she said in a recent interview, it is “... our turn.”

But hey, I am sure Ken and Barbie thought they, given their financial success, should have had a “turn” at playing President and First Lady as well.

MICHAEL COOK

Gloucester