A few months ago, I said I would not fear a Mitt Romney presidency because Congress would be somewhat of a deterrent for his most irrational policies. I've changed my mind because of his bellicose rhetoric as a potential Commander in Chief. I now see him as a person who would "shoot first and ask questions later."
About four months ago, Mitt criticized the Obama administration for endangering the family of the blind Chinese activist, Chen Guagcheng, seeking asylum in the United States. He did not know that Hillary Clinton was working behind the scenes with China to work out a successful deal from the Chinese government that they eventually received.
Recently, Mitt drew fire from some Republican leaders for interjecting his political criticism of the administration's handling of the recent death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American's deaths in Libya. Mitt Romney has been trying to paint President Obama as an appeaser and being weak on terrorism. Pundits thought that the cowboy rhetoric was coming from the neocons on his staff, but a reporter said that most of the hot air was coming from Mitt himself. Mitt Romney is used to being in charge, and he doesn't like being painted as being weak on foreign policy. Mitt says that he would have a strong military which would demand respect around the world. How naive, we can't bring in the Marines to start indiscriminately shooting protesters in a foreign country. We took the rational approach and sent in the FBI who quickly arrested four suspects. The suspects may not be the ones who attacked the U.S. Consulate, but they might lead us to the ones who did. It's in the hands of the FBI, where it should be. The president has dispatched two navy warships to the coast of Libya, as a show of force. The situation in the Middle East is very unstable right now, but it can only be handled by one Commander in Chief at a time.
I really don't mind Mitt questioning the latest actions of the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, who recently started a new round of bond-buying, known as quantitative easing or QE3. Mitt Romney and the Republicans think this move is a political one, even though the Federal Reserve is an independent entity. Ben Bernanke is a conservative Republican who thinks our economy is in dire need of more stimulus. He knows the risk of inflation, but these actions will keep the interest rates low enough to help the housing market and small businesses with hiring and training costs. The stock market immediately rose after the chairman's decision. We'll have to wait and see the aftermath, but it's a step in the right direction. Consumer confidence has started to pick up.
I know President Obama is up by six points nationally and is leading in all the critical swing states but the Republicans desire to remove Obama from office might outweigh any question they might have answered in a poll. The Democratic voters might just say that the presidents got it in the bag, so it's not imperative for them to vote. I even saw where Pennsylvania's voter ID law might be overturned or at least put on hold until after the election, but that state is too important for Democrats to start getting complacent. They need to keep registering voters as if the law will be upheld. I got a kick out of one of the Republican judges saying that his ID card could open any Federal courthouse, but it would not entitle him to vote because it does not have an expiration date on it. He also said something to the effect that steps should be taken to ensure elections are free of fraud but can a law that was enacted overnight really assure us of its true intent. For example, it took Georgia up to five years to work out all the kinks before presenting it for a successful vote.
I'll be watching because, as predicted this election will be one to behold. It might even surpass the 2002 Bush V Gore fiasco.
Meanwhile, I'm going to keep up with that 77-year-old Texas grandmother who was caught speeding and refused to show the police officer, her driver's license, so she got yanked from her car and thrown to the ground. Of course, all this was caught on the police video, and the broadcast went viral. I don't really know what the correct procedure should have been but in hindsight, I think the police officer should've called for backup, disabled her car because you don't want a speeder to take off again; putting herself in danger. It's a good thing that these confrontations with old people are rare. It was just a speeding ticket, and the police knew where she lived, so it's not like the police didn't have the ability to give her a summons at her home. Perhaps this is a lesson for old people...:-)