The Newsweek essay that exposes Mitt as as gutless wonder: "The Wimp Factor" [View all]

[pnwmom]

The whole article is well worth reading. Here are a few snippets.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/29/michael-tomasky-a-candidate-with-a-serious-wimp-problem.html

Dodging reports, fearing his base, hiding his taxes—is Mitt Romney just too insecure to be president? In Newsweek, Michael Tomasky surves a history of presidential manliness and asks just where Mitt would fit amid the studly swagger of Dubya and Reagan.

SNIP

And what kind of presidential candidate whines about a few attacks and demands an apology when the going starts to get rough? And tries to sound tough by accusing the president who killed the world’s most-wanted villain of appeasement? That’s what they call overcompensation, and it’s a dead giveaway; it’s the “tell.” This guy is nervous—terrified—about looking weak. And ironically, being terrified of looking weak makes him look weaker still.

SNIP

Compounding matters, when pressed to the slightest degree about his inconsistencies, he can get nasty and whiny. No one talks anymore about his encounter with Bret Baier of Fox News last December, but it was a Moment. When Baier had the nerve to challenge him on his health-care and immigration views, Romney complained—told Baier his questions were “uncalled for!” Of course it was Fox, which is supposed to be his on-air public-relations firm, so Romney was shocked. But even so, you don’t say it. A politician complaining about a journalist just doing his job is ... weenie-ish.


SNIP

Romney will go at Obama hard until the election on Pentagon cuts and security leaks and Obama’s alleged apologies for America. Here and there he’ll score a point. But here, too, he’s just trying too hard. You watch something like his recent VFW speech, and you see that he so desperately wants people to see him and think: “He’s like Reagan.” Please. You would no more cast Romney as Reagan than you would Pee-wee Herman as James Bond.

SNIP