Throughout this presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has claimed
that if he is elected President, he will reach out across the aisle
and be bi-partisan, unlike President Obama. Romney says that this was
his greatest success as Governor of Massachusetts, and it is one of the
major reasons why U.S. voters should vote for him - to end the partisan
gridlock.
Aside from the indisputable fact that the
partisan gridlock about which Romney complains has been entirely caused
by GOP legislators and the Obama-hating core of supporters to whom they
pander, a more basic question needs to be answered: Is Romney telling us
the truth about his ability to work with Democrats during his one term
as governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?
When Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts -- my state - he vetoed
800 bills - each of which was promptly overridden by a
Democratically-controlled legislature, as PBS's Frontline reminds us.
During Mr. Romney's one four-year term as governor of Massachusetts, he
was absent from the state, cumulatively, for more than a year -- part or
all of 417 days -- out of the state, based upon a review of his schedule
and other records. More than 70 percent of that time was spent on
personal or political trips unrelated to his job, a New York Times analysis reported.
Hence during the 1409 days of his governorship, Mitt Romney vetoed at
least one bill for every 1.1 days that he spent within the Commonwealth
at work as our governor. How's that for record of bi-partisanship?
Romney's claim about bi-partisanship ranks as one of his most egregious
lies. This claim, in particular, should not be allowed to go
unchallenged because its insults the intelligence of voters and unmasks
his candidacy as one that has been constructed, almost entirely, upon constantly repeated fabrications.
It painfully clear that
Mitt Romney is a serial liar whose prevarications are legion. His
appalling lack of a moral center and utter disregard for the truth
should disqualify him among voters as a presidential candidate.
In his seminal book 1984,
George Orwell warned us of the dangers of the big lies in world where
words no longer had any meaning and where, because of their inability to
distinguish fact from fantasy and propaganda, an entire population was
reduced to the status of servile, uncomprehending, easily-manipulated
supplicants. A democracy cannot survive when its citizens permit truth
and accountability to become the first casualties in an election.
