In what has already been a very heated Presidential campaign, the Mitt Romney team is crossing lines in an unprecedented way in regards to their disrespect of the President of the United States. In the second debate Wednesday night, Romney repeatedly interupted the President and at one point told him that “you’ll get your turn” to speak in a dismissive manner as if he was talking to an employee or a student. Not withstanding the many, many offensive remarks and names that have come from the lips of GOP supporters and Romney surrogates, this latest dig is a new low for American politics.
It’s hard to remember ever hearing the family members of a Presidential candidate make such personal and controversial statements as the one made by Romney’s son Tagg, who told a radio audience that he wanted to “take a swing” at President Obama during the second debate. Most Americans recognize that politics is a rough sport, and there are things said in the heat of battle that may in fact get under the skin of a candidate’s spouse or family members, but they would never threaten harm or make those type of comments publicly.
In fact, except for the wives, who hope to be the First Lady, candidates rarely let the media have access to the children, but Romney’s son is a grown man and obviously is more than aware that he’s talking about the President of the United States. One can only wonder had a son of President Obama, or one of his daughters for that matter, uttered such a thing in front of a camera or microphone, the Republicans would declare a World War. In that scenario, the outrage would be deafening.
But this is the GOP, this is Mitt Romney and the Republican Party again displaying total disrespect for not only President Obama, but the office of the Presidency itself. At the time of this post, no Republican has stepped forward to denounce the statement and remind Romney there is no place in politics for children of candidates to make even “light-hearted” threats against the President. Nor has Mitt Romney apologized for his son’s remarks. Then again, Romney’s book was entitled “No Apologies”.
