Where Was the Real Romney

Towards the end of last night’s debate, Big Brother called.  He wanted to know who these guys were that we were watching on the debate.

“It’s like watching two totally different guys from the first two debates.  What’s Romney doing?  I’m bored.  I’m thinking of switching to the football game.”

My guess was that Romney was playing to the Independent base, although Romney hit Obama with a couple of good slams, especially on the Apology Tour.  Obama retorted with a technicality, claiming he never actually said, “I’m sorry.”  You could have fooled the rest of us.  The fact-checkers have reams of paper quoting Obama as bashing America’s previous foreign policies and promising better relationships with our adversaries, which pretty much amounts to an apology.

Romney allowed so many opportunities to slip by, leaving his supporters wondering where their hero went.  Why didn’t he finish the job?  Why did he let Obama get away with so many lies and misstatements?  Why didn’t he continue with the facts about Libya?

Let’s take Obama’s declaration that we no longer need a Navy and that the Army and Marines no longer fight with bayonets as we did in 1918.  Anyone in the military will tell you that they can still affix a bayonet to their gun as a last resort when they run out of ammunition.  We still have a cavalry – the four-footed kind as well as the mechanical.  Our military is also taught hand-to-hand combat, how to throw a bunch and so forth.  Very old-fashioned and fundamental, but necessary.

As for our Navy, here are the watery facts:   95.7 percent of all of earth’s water is salt water, 3 percent fresh, 1.5 percent soil moisture.  Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface and makes up 95 percent of all space available to terrestrial life.  We found out during World I and World War II that air superiority – air being 100 percent available – was critical in war.  However, transportation of bulk materials by air is difficult, dangerous, and expensive.  For military and commercial purposes, water transportation is still the favored mode, particularly across the vast expanses of the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Free, unimpeded trade is vital to a free world and a free economy.  Therefore, a strong Navy is vital to protect the merchant marine trade.  We’d certainly like to produce more of our own goods in America, but traditional economic theory states that if we don’t want prices to spiral out of control, we must also have solid trade agreements with other countries, to sell our excess production – something we don’t have right now.

We also have enemies abroad; those who would see our status as a trading nation reduced, by force if necessary, those who would destroy capitalism, and a third that zealously seek a global caliphate.  Surface ships – battleships, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and support ships - are all necessary to this effort.  And we don’t have the air support necessary anymore to protect the ships.

Obama is not worried about economics; he’s ambitious to achieve military “parity” with Russia and China, which is to say, have fewer ships, tanks and soldiers than they do.   More than that, he wishes to destroy our military superiority.  His disingenuous remarks about being concerned about America’s security are simply bilge water.

A large fleet is necessary to challenge a determined enemy.  Hundreds of merchant ships, barely armed per the Geneva Convention, were sunk in the North Atlantic during World War II.  These ships were bringing badly needed supplies to Great Britain.  Obama would have us build fewer, larger ships for the sake of economy.  But we’re not talking about double-tractor trailer trucks on Route 80, crossing the country, where the biggest dangers to the trucks are bad weather, bad auto drivers and bad roads.  One submarine hit on a cargo ship could destroy thousands of gallons of fuel or iron ore for munitions.  One hit on a large aircraft carrier could mean the loss of hundreds, if not thousands of lives.  A torpedo hit in the right section of the ship could mean she would sink almost immediately, as the USS Arizona did in Pearl Harbor.

Winston Churchill advised Great Britain to build medium-sized troop carriers, lowering the risk of a great number of personnel being lost.  Even the Germans only a built a handful of large battleships.  Another “relic” of the past, the submarine – the first submarine served in the Civil War – is still a weapon and a menace of the seas.  Yes, technology plays a greater role in tracking them, but you still need the hardware to sink one, a combination of radar, sonar, destroyers, our own submarines, and aircraft.

We also need good intelligence.  For years, the Liberals excoriated the Central Intelligence Agency.  Now that they’re in charge, they’re finding this agency quite useful in carrying out their plans.  The Progressives, who once wanted to impeach Ronald Reagan for trading arms for our hostages in Iran, merrily supply Islamist and even Al-Qaeda extremists with the weapons they need to achieve their ends, under the guise of freedom and democracy.  There’s been an endless line of them parading in and out of Obama’s White House.

Why didn’t Romney point out all this to Obama during the debate?  Possibly because the Liberals have an army of Media cheerleaders who will back Obama up, verifying his false information, his lies, and cover-ups.  Maybe he figured there was no point in making accusations because Obama would simply deny them.  Romney did not allow Obama’s attacks on himself to go unchallenged.  He would have defended his record further, but moderator Bob Schieffer would not permit him to do so.  No surprise there.

“I want peace,” Romney said.  What he didn’t mention was that our enemies do not want peace.  When questioned about Iran, he said he agreed with Obama’s strategy, a remark that left Romney supporters perplexed and unsatisfied.  Let Iran make the first move.  Let them lie, and then attack Israel, and if Obama is president, we will see if he keeps his promise to stand by Israel, or whether he crosses the border from Jordan into Israel, with King Abdullah in the lead and our army behind, to negotiate what will be essentially a surrender by Israel.

Let them lie, and then attack Israel, and if Romney is president, he will keep his word and protect Israel, our long-time ally.  It could mean war.  It must come soon before they complete their ability to launch an attack, which is very near.  Once Iran has that ability, talking and sanctions will be useless.

Let us take the positive view, and assume that Romney was playing to the Independents and that they’re convinced Romney is the right leader for our nation, no matter how disappointing last night’s performance was to us.  Look, it wasn’t all that bad.  Romney delivered a few satisfying punches to Obama that left the president scowling and confused.

When Romney agreed with Obama on his approach to Afghanistan (according to Glenn Beck, two-thirds of the losses in Afghanistan have occurred under Obama’s administration), Obama replied, puffing up his chest, “Well, I’m glad you agree with me, Mr. Romney.”

That wasn’t for you, Obama, you silly doofus;  that was to satisfy the Independents.  We’re in Afghanistan to clear the area of Taliban fighters so China can mine the Afghan mountains for rare earth minerals.  China, the same country reports indicate you’ve been accepting foreign donations from.  The same country whose leader you hosted.  The same country you have investments in, as well as the Cayman Islands.  China, where you are held in great esteem.  They sell tee-shirts of you over there, with your face under a Mao Cap, with the words – in Chinese – “Mao-bama.”  I have one.  Are you getting royalties on the sale of your face on those tee shirts, and are they going towards financing your campaign?

Your record on everything from clean energy to the economy to foreign policy to Obamacare is a disaster.  If voters make the right choice, you will find yourself bowing to a future President Romney in January 2013.