Box Turtle Bulletin

Mitt Romney Endorses “New Rule” On Disrespecting American Soldier

The newly minted rule about booing an American soldier stationed in Iraq and refusing to thank him for his service has now been fully endorsed by the GOP frontrunner, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In this interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader, you can watch the panderer in chief in action:

Union Leader: Governor, there were a lot of chattering going on in the mainstream media about some of the goings on at the debates, including a question from a soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq who happened to be gay. Could you hear question and answer from this guy from your position on stage?

Romney: I heard the question and answer, yeah. You hear a lot, I mean you don’t hear everything going on. Obviously you’re concentrating on the people on the stage and what you’re going to say.

Union Leader: Well there was audible, to the home audience, boos from a couple of people or thirty people, I don’t know, in the audience. And I couldn’t tell from home whether you people on stage could hear the boos, and if you did hear the boos what was your reaction to them.

Romney: Actually, I think we can hear the boos, I would tell you that in these debates, there’s been a lot of booing and a lot of applause, cheering and booing, some of which I don’t agree with. Now, I have not made it my practice to scold the audience to say I disagree with this person, I agree with that person because it goes in a lot of different directions. don’t recall whether this soldier, whether people were booing his question or just booing…

Union Leader: They booed as soon as he identified as a gay person.

Romney: You have to look into that. I don’t know when they booed and I don’t know why people booed. But I will tell you, that the boos and applause has not always coincided with my own views. But I haven’t stepped in to try and say, “this one is right, this one is wrong.” Instead, I focus on the things I think I will say.

Union Leader: I ask because I think it was Herman Cain over the weekend was asked about it and he said in effect that he should have criticized whoever was booing in the audience.

Romney: That’s…I understand his thoughts.

Union Leader: But yours are…?

Romney: Look, there were people who cheered when statements were made at the Reagan library that a number of… two hundred some-odd people had been executed in Texas. I don’t know that cheering for executions is something I would agree with either, but I don’t raise my hand and say, “Please let me talk, I want to tell everyone you shouldn’t be cheering.” (laughs) We … I haven’t made it my practice to listen to the cheers and the boos and to try to the people on their expressions of their view.

But you can bet your mother’s grave that if a Democratic audience membered had booed any soldier for any reason that Romney and his cowardly cohorts would have no hesitation to condemn them in the most thunderous, righteous terms available. You can also bet your father’s grave along with it that never before has a Republican presidential candidate failed to thank a man or woman in uniform for their service, and will never again fail to do it — as long as they believe that servicemember is straight.

That’s the new rule in politics. A rule that Romney has refined a bit by by placing the disrespect of an American soldier alongside cheers for  executing 254 prisoners in Texas. Thank you Stephen Hill for your service to America.