Given U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's very poorly-recieved foreign trip to London, Jerusalem, and Warsaw in July, one would think that at least in terms of speaking about foreign countries he might try not to step in his own poo for awhile. You'd be wrong.
Voice of America reports that at a campaign stop in Florida on Tuesday, Romney trash-talked China's Olympic medal count and its planned unmanned lunar mission, saying "I hope they have a good experience doing that. And I hope they stop in and take a look at our flag that was put there 43 years ago".
“This is still the greatest nation on Earth. I know there are people around the world who are always critical of America, have something negative to say, say our greatest days are in the past. Baloney. We just won more Olympic medals than any other nation on Earth. You also just saw we just landed on Mars and took a good look at what's going on there. And I know the Chinese are planning on going to the moon, and I hope they have a good experience doing that. And I hope they stop in and take a look at our flag that was put there 43 years ago.”
Criticism of China's trade practices, currency policies, or human rights record has a long track record among U.S. Presidential candidates of both parties. And China's leadership probably even "gets it" that they're a useful domestic foil (because they do it too). But that's not what Mitt Romney was doing here.
It's a good thing to be proud of one's country's accomplishments. It's another thing to be snarky and dismissive of someone else's. Romney's taunting words are more an illustration of America's insecurity at its relative economic decline than an expression of its (real) strength. In fact, this kind of demagoguery trivializes and diminishes U.S. accomplishments in space. And at the Olympics for that matter.
And it does not win any friends. A genuinely great nation does not need to brag or make lame statements to prove its "exceptionalism". Demogogic jingoism may win a few votes from the missing chromosome demographic, but it is both ugly and empty. Romney's performance was sad, and less than Presidential-calibur behavior.
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