Romney’s Dirty Tricks

Romney, who spends his time whining and demanding apologies from Barack Obama or Joe Biden (“Man up,” Mitt, his friends from the tea party could tell him), is acting like a weakling: On the one hand, he complains about the low blows he is receiving from the 44th president’s campaign; on the other, he is not shying away from using not-so-clean methods himself. This evokes [George] W. Bush’s campaign against John Kerry. While the Massachusetts senator had fought bravely in Vietnam, a phony group, working underground for the Bush-Cheney campaign, released a film that was nothing but a 22-minute fabrication, saying that Kerry, in actuality, was not so well behaved during the Vietnam War. The worst is that the attacks came from a camp of shirkers — those who, from Cheney to Bush, had used all means not to be sent to Vietnam. Romney, whose campaign breaks records in mediocrity, is just finding what he hopes will be the “magic bullet”: false controversy over the killing of Bin Laden.

A group called Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund, which claims to be made up of former Special Forces, created a 22-minute film in which the group takes issue with Barack Obama. As there is nothing to say about the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the group calls the President out, saying: “Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden. America did,” echoing a theme from the Republicans.

George Bush, however, during his eight years in the White House, was not able to kill him, preferring to clown around on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, declaring “Mission Accomplished,” as Iraq was about to descend into the violence that would cost the lives of 4,500 Americans.

This group is so brave (we would not like to have been on the ground with its members), that it was established as a charitable organization —501(c)(4), in the language of the tax code— and not as a political organization, which exempts them from revealing their funding sources.

In the film, Ben Smith, who presents himself as a former Navy SEAL, the elite troop of the U.S. Army, calls on the president: “As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy. It will get Americans killed.”

The strings of this documentary are so obvious that it is laughable. Obama immediately denounced these tactics already tried on Kerry.

There was no Ryan effect in the polls, in favor of the Republican ticket. There will be no more swiftboating this time. Another big flop for Romney.