Romney campaign surrogate John Sununu half-apologized Tuesday for suggesting President Obama is un-American.
"Frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words, and I apologize for using those words," Sununu told CNN this afternoon. "I don't apologize for the idea that this president has demonstrated that he does not understand how jobs are created in America."
On a campaign conference call with reporters this morning, the former governor of New Hampshire railed against President Obama. He vented, "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." He quickly tried to walk back the comments on the same phone call. "What I thought I said but what I didn't say is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business," Sununu said, attempting to clarify his remarks.
But on Fox News, Sununu took another swing at Obama: He "has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn't be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, and when he came to the U.S. worked as a community organizer — which is a socialized structure — and then got into politics in Chicago."
So he apologized for the un-American line, yet stood by his accusations essentially calling Obama a stoner. If the druggie line is any indication, Sununu seems to have taken Rush Limbaugh's advice
To help fend off the Obama campaign's attacks on Bain, as we pointed out on The Last Word yesterday, Limbaugh recommended Team Romney "say, 'Look, pal, when I was out creating jobs, investing in businesses, and growing this economy, you were a Columbia smoking weed and snorting coke.'"
Today, the conservative talk show host applauded the former governor's efforts and offered up more tips on how to attack.
Limbaugh reflected, "Sununu, in every one of his TV appearances, takes no prisoners. So I think Sununu has been appointed with the task of going out and performing the duties that I am suggesting need to happen. 'Cause that's it: "[I]n Hawaii smoking something.' He's doing it." He continued, "The only thing he left out was that Obama's been mentored, educated, bent and shaped by a bunch of communists. Marxists."
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So what? The only thing Republicans know how to do is talk trash. Just look at any comment section of a news site.
Rush Limba spewed this tired tragedian rhetoric to his millions of loyal lackey followers, July 16, 2012:
"I think it can now be said, without equivocation -without equivocation - that this man hates this country ... Barack Obama is trying to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream. There's no other way to put this. There's no other way to explain this. He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced. He moved to Chicago. It was the home of the radical-left movement. He hooks up to Ayers and Dohrn and Rashid Khalidi. He learns the ruthlessness of Cook County politics. This is what we have as a president: A radical ideologue, a ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great."
It's as Mark Twain wrote, "Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
Republicans aren't going for logical and reasonable, they are going for stupid.
See the bigger picture here is that the Romney campaign and Republicans in general, have no policy positions to offer other than that of the tired rhetoric that, "tax cuts and deregulation" are the answer to the problems with our economy.
It's obvious by now that cutting taxes for the rich did not create jobs and the war in Iraq was a huge unnecessary burden on the US tax payer.
From 2000 to 2007, the United States lost one in five (3.5 million) middle-class jobs. A majority of the new jobs created in the United States under Bush pay extremely low wages at less than $18,000 a year, usually without benefits. This is with corporate profits at an all time high since 1960. The 2005 CBO data show that changes in law enacted since January 2001 increased the deficit by $539 billion in 2005. In the absence of such legislation, the nation would have a surplus that year. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts were finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits went to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.
President Bush and his supporters argued that high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity.
Never happened.
What about the endless sloganeering against "regulations" by the Republican Party? Republicans like to call regulations "job killing". I admit the phrase is heart breaking and disparagingly clever, but the fact of the matter is that regulations create jobs and ultimately support the general welfare of all the people of our country.
Look at it this way: If you have Social Security, Medicare, the right to vote, the right to an education, a clean park or a lake near you or an FDIC insured place to put your money. If you were given a disability check or a wheel chair ramp into the store you buy your food, if you like safe bridges, clean drinking water, clean air and a nontoxic environment, if you feel safe when you fly, or eat out, or give your child a toy, then it's time you give liberals and "regulations" the credit they deserve.
We'll see who's who and what's what once the President is handily re-elected in November.
O
Sununu is a fat drunken idiot..
Oh.. did I say that?
I'm sorry..
Sununu succeeded in making both Romney and his entire campaign look quite small today....
Mr. O'Donnel has no problem refering to rush as a druf addict. you are such hypocrites. Obama will certainly go down as the worst president in the 21st century. Don't listen to what people say, look at what they do.
exactly so look at romney charlene dont listen if you believe that shutting down plants and shipping jobs overseas is good go ahead and vote your guy in if you believe only poor white and black families should die in wars that rich white men profit from and they never go join the service themselves, as for my household we are indeed looking at action my son has asthma and i am glad i can now find better employment because my kid wont be rejected by some insurance company i will vote for the man who says as a woman i should get equal pay for equal work ,no need to thank the sane among us for doing the right thing by reelecting president Obama,your welcome.
Joy and Charles are exactly right. Good to hear such straightforward honesty. No fear there.
The Republicans are a scary bunch of bigots. They seem to despise everything and everyone and seem to never have a kind or empathetic word or sentiment for others.. And they are so woefully ill-educated and ignorant, most of them anyway, and the ones with any intellect whatsoever are so mean and greedy that they let nothing stand in their way. Just awful to watch and listen to.
WHY do white conservs hate obama so much? BECAUSE HE'S SMARTER THAN THEM! they're PISSED the prez isn't fred sanford, someone they could feel superior to...
Why are these revelations re: Limbaugh, Romney, Sanunu, their non-srmed service volunteering, addictions etc., not published to all? It seems that ALL people with open minds would THINK AND SEE these people as they really are!
Just an FYI -- John H. Sununu was born in Havana; his mother, Victoria Dada Sununu, was born in El Salvador. But his father, John S. Sununu, was born in Boston, MA, making John H. a citizen of the USA automatically.
Is there anything it what John Sununu said about Obama's economic philosophy that was wrong? Obama is known to have trashed talked US Businessess, especially our fossil fuel sectors and financial sectors. He made his true economic philosophy known when he went on his world apology tour (who asked him to do so?), and in his statements about "transforming" America said in the same breath as "I think we all do better when we (the Government) spread the wealth (of others the capitalist and investor class) around". He peevisly announced to a press conference just weeks ago when confronted with terrible sliding economic news and a slumping employment picture (slumping except for unemployment rate, that is) that "the private sector is doing fine...its the public sector that needs assistance". And now his cockynamie very leftist (socialist if not ouright communist concept) that "if you have a business...you didn't build that...other people did that!" which is the justification he has for wanting to take the profits of that business and redistribute them to the nameless "others", taking a goodly part of those confiscated profits to pad the rolls of the public sector, or course, for partisan patronage opportunities.
So shove it, Move On and National Review. The Romney campaign knows what the American people want to hear and see happen with the media taking an honest look at our piss poor economy and fiscal situation and energy policies and strategic defense posture, and how we got here after 4 years of Obama and his reckless spending and borrowing, and talking down business activity and talking up taxing, and Romney plans to give them that information. Maybe it would behoove this network and other media to start paying attention to those issues?
Aparently the Romney campaign doesnt know what the American people want to hear, because if he did he'd release his tax returns. (Which is the real reason he was not chosen as VP on the McCain ticket) He released 23 years of taxes to McCain and just 1 day after his campaign people were finished reviewing the taxes, they decided not to go with Romney, but Palin instead. They know like many others know, that Romney went years, at least 4 without paying ANY Taxes yet still making millions. ~ That's information that Americans deserve to know about their President!!! And if he and Bain are "Pioneers of Outsourcing" as they call themselves, in the private sector, imagine what he will do to the public sector!! Only a fool or a Billionaire should vote for this moron!!!
What a load of crap, VKelley. McCain had his problems with the conservative base of his party having the past reputation of crossing party lines too often for liberal causes. That's why Huckabee took him to the mat late into the primary and state caucus and convention delegate fight. So McCain had to mend his fences to solidify the party, and chose Palin for her 1) ability to appeal to the conservative base, her being a woman, and her expertise she could arugue on developing our own rich sources of oil rather than bleed for it in the Middle east for years to come enriching nations states that do not have our welfare in mind. McCain is supporting Mr. Romney, if you haven't noticed, and he only released two years of his tax returns. So where is the beef to your stupid summantions?
As to the American people, they could care less about this issue. They are looking at their dwindling family incomes, their homes being foreclosed and/or underwater with their mortagages, and if they have employment, they fear they will lose it if things coninue the way they are under this present borrow, spend and tax President. If you haven't noticed, Mr. Obama, as an reelection candidate has made absolutely no progress in the polls to reaching the 50% of the voters support for another term, and he has not benefit matched with Romney from his campaigns mud slinging on these distractions from the real issues before. What a loser!
Sununu is a corrupt Reaganite who had to pay back the Federal government $47,000 for the more than $500,000 in illegal travel he bilked the U.S. taxpayers for - but maybe he's right. Obama has no idea how to be corrupt on the level of "Americans" like the GOP are parading around.
Limbaugh's just a blow-hard wannabe. He's incapable of being a politician himself, so he just goes around trying to rally support for someone who - although incompetent next to Obama - is a far better person than Rush could ever be.
That said - The GNoP has only one priority - and has had only one priority: Reclaiming power by making Obama (in the words of Grand Wizard McConnell... um Senate Minority Leader McConnell) a "one term President." They told their sheeple 4 years ago that they wouldn't be working on the economy, or on jobs, or on anything that the American People needed.
Why is it that the GNoP and Tea Party faithful are so stupid they can't remember that? Why are they so kool-aid laden that they don't realize they're being fitted with the yoke and bridle by their own politico-corporate masters? The GOP has the goal of turning American into nothing short of a neo-feudalistic society where the serfs and peons are the middle and working classes, and the Landlords and Landed Gentry are themselves and their cronies.
Seems to me that Obama and wife Michele have also had to pay back the taxpayers for their inappropriate travel also. All an error by their White House Travel Department, that had to be investigated by the Inspector General ("Travelgate") during the Clinton Administration..but that was all just bureaucratic oversight. The Republicans are the thieves, hmmmm?
And it is the American people who are going to make of Barrack Obama a one term president in the mold of a Jimmie Carter, "Goode", and a good thing that will be!
You and Obama have nothing!
Are we on another planet? What hole did this old man (Sununu) come out o (oh the one with Limbaugh in it). I do believe he was pretty much a crook himself. Why don't we see respected GOP leaders come forth and speak for Romney. Where is McCain, Bush, etc. Pretty bad when Romney gets the Michelle Bachmans and Sununu's of this world speaking for him. Romney is the least presidential nominee I have ever seen. I realize recovery is very slow, but we are getting better than we were when Bush left office. This president took office at one of the worst points in our history and people expect a turnaround in 4 years - plus a group of self-centered idiots in congress to deal with. I know what I have with Obama and it is not worth taking a chance on Romney. He lies, panders, and does not give any ideas to make things better. I don't trust him or those giving him lots of $$$$$$$$$$$. No one gives that kind of money without expecting something in return. The GOP needs to work on recruiting some members with common sense and respect for the American people (yes and that does include us women), and maybe then they will have someone in the White House again. Romney is not the person to represent this great country.
3 million less people working, most of them women, black and hispanic Americans under Obama then were working in the last year of the Bush Administration. Gasoline and Diesel and Home Heathing Oil selling at ridiculous prices from $3.40 a gallon to norht of $4.00 a gallon right now in Obama wonderland of windmill and solar investments (and algae...don't forget that algae he was promoting a few months back) as the alternatives to oil and coal and cheap and abundant natural gas due to the new technologies of production known as fracking). How many lost billions of tax dollars in "new green energy" that went belly up and or moved their base of opererations to Mexico, Finland, Denmark, and China in the great outsourcing of our tax dollars and our promised jobs. And still this fool economic illiterate Obama persists in trying to sell that nonsense that no one except Al Gore and the Sierra Club are at all interested in.
What a loser!
Thank you Lawrence O'Donnell for having Charles Blow on Explaining how INSANE the Republican Party has gone to DEMONIZE this President as being a "out of Space Alien" not even of this Earth.
Keep Explaining how the Republicans are WILLING TO DERAIL THIS COUNTRY TO get the President out of Office on HATRED.
I love your Re-Writes. They are both illuminating and educational. You could TEACH THE PRESS how to DISSECT THE TRUTH on all of these Lies.