Matt Taibbi, in comparing Mitt Romney's address to the NAACP and later to a "friendlier audience" in Montana:
So now this is the message: I tried to reason with the blacks, I really did, but it turns out they just want a free lunch.
How’s that for bridging the racial divide? Time to wake up the Nobel committee in Oslo!
As far as free lunches go, we of course just witnessed the biggest government handout in history, one that Romney himself endorsed. Four and a half trillion dollars in bailout money already disbursed, trillions more still at risk in guarantees and loans, sixteen trillion dollars
in emergency lending from the Federal Reserve, two trillion in
quantitative easing, etc. etc. All of this money went to Romney’s pals
in the Wall Street banks that for years helped Romney take over
companies with mountains of borrowed cash. Now, after these banks
crashed, executives at those same firms used those public funds to pay
themselves massive salaries, which is exactly the opposite of “helping
those who need help,” if you’re keeping score.
That set of facts alone made the “free stuff” speech shockingly
offensive. But the problem isn’t just that Romney’s wrong, and a
hypocrite, and cynically furthering dangerous and irresponsible
stereotypes in order to advance some harebrained electoral ploy
involving white conservative voters. What makes it gross is the way he
did it.
Romney can’t even be mean with any honesty. Even when he’s pandering
to viciousness, ignorance and racism, it comes across like a scaly
calculation. A guy who feels like he has to take a dump on the
N.A.A.C.P. in Houston in order to connect with frustrated white yahoos
everywhere else is a guy who has absolutely no social instincts at all.
Someone like Jesse Helms at least had a genuine emotional connection
with his crazy-mean-stupid audiences. But Mitt Romney has to think his
way to the lowest common denominator, which is somehow so much worse. [Matt Taibbi, "Romney's 'Free Stuff' Speech is a New Low," 13 July 2012]
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