OK. I've listened to the Romney fundraising tape in its entirety.
My reaction: What's the big deal?
This sort of political rhetoric - spoken off the cuff by a candidate to a group of contributors and largely grounded in the facts that he cites - could only be considered shocking in that alternate left-wing universe inhabited by people who surround themselves by others who think as they, and who are lead around by the nose by opinions such as those ventilated on the pages of Mother Jones.
In the final analysis, Romney's comments captured an essential truth that is on the minds of many voters: that for too many American citizens, America has become an entitlement state.
Let the Left pile on. But why apologize for stating this incontrovertible
truth?
Romney's mistake, if he made one, was to jump from the data point that approximately 47% of Americans don't pay any federal income taxes to the conclusion that there is a relationship between the paying of federal income taxes and the
exercise of responsible citizenship.
If that were true, then
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton,
Abraham Lincoln, indeed all Americans who lived prior to 1913 (the year the 16th
Amendment was enacted), would be considered irresponsible citizens.
It is a blunder no
conservative should make. It is a blunder no conservative would make. Starving
the beast of ever expanding government by allowing people to pay less tax and
keep more of their own money is a canon of conservative governance.
But the Republican Party, for whatever reasons, chose to nominate a successful businessman as it's candidate rather than a movement conservative who has been "punching the bag in
the conservative gym." Because of this, they have a man who is - how to say it? - lightly equipped for the inevitable
battle of ideas that must be joined in order to defeat Obama.
The solution: unleash
well-formed Paul Ryan, who, unlike Romney, will not lose his nerve because he
has the foundation, temperament, and intellectual equipment to champion
effectively the conservative vision.
