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NEWS FLASH

Romney Supporter Jon Huntsman Criticizes Romney’s China Policy: ‘It’s Wrongheaded’ | Mitt Romney has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today trying to paint President Obama as weak on China. While the piece misrepresents the president’s China policy, Foreign Policy’s Daniel Drezner opined that it also “reads like it was composed by the Hulk.” Now it seems like Romney’s own supporters think it was a bit much. Discussing the op-ed today on MSNBC, former GOP presidential contender Jon Huntsman, who has endorsed Romney, called Romney’s China policy “wrongheaded.” “It’s much easier to talk about China in terms of the fear factor,” Huntsman said referring to Romney’s op-ed. What advice does Huntsman have for Romney and the other candidates on China? “Less pandering.” Watch the clip:

Politics

Romney’s ‘Growing Up’ Michigan Ad Features Picture Of Mitt Atop Helipad At New York World Fair

By Scott Keyes on Feb 16, 2012 at 1:30 pm

Mitt Romney’s latest Michigan ad, entitled “Growing Up,” features a photo of himself as a young man with his father, then-Michigan Gov. George Romney (R) as Mitt narrates, “I remember going to the Detroit auto show with my dad.”

However, as Jed Lewison at Daily Kos points out, the photo Mitt uses (seen at right) to tout his Michigan roots was not taken at the Detroit auto show. It was actually taken at the 1964 World Fair in New York.

What’s more, commentor TheCrank notes, is that Romney and his father took the photo not among the masses at the World Fair. Rather, it appears that the two were looking down on fair atop a 120-foot helipad. Note the position of the giant blow-up car in the photo above on the following map of the 1964 World Fair (red circles are ours):

It is not clear from the photo whether the Romneys arrived at the fair by helicopter or simply climbed the helipad on their own.

Romney, who has tried effortlessly during the campaign to present himself as an everyday man, was hurt earlier this year when it was revealed that despite being worth in excess of $250 million, he paid a tax rate of less than 15 percent in 2010 and has accounts in notorious tax-dodging havens like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

The image of Romney atop a helipad will give critics who view him the former Massachusetts governor as an out-of-touch elitist more fodder.

Huffington Post points out another headache for Romney’s campaign with the “Growing Up” ad: it features the presidential hopeful driving a Canadian-made car.

ThinkProgress contacted the Romney campaign for comment. We will post their response if one is provided.

NEWS FLASH

Actress In Xenophobic Hoekstra Ad Apologizes | Lisa Chan, the actress who appeared in former Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s (R-MI) xenophobic ad against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), has now apologized for her role. In a statement, Chan expressed regret:

I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities. As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.

Even his fellow Republicans roundly criticized Hoekstra for the racially insensitve attack ad, which aired during the Super Bowl and featured Chan in what’s meant to be rural China thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” Former Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis called the ad “dumb” and in “bad taste.”

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 16, 2012 at 11:15 am

Security

Romney’s China Policy Attack Op-Ed Misrepresents Obama’s ‘Strategic Pivot’ To The Asia-Pacific

By Ben Armbruster on Feb 16, 2012 at 11:09 am

With Chinese vice president and presumed next leader Xi Jinping visiting the United States this week, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal today to attack President Obama’s China policy. Romney tries to go with the standard “GOP: Strong; Obama: weak” meme that has characterized much of the Republicans’ attacks on Obama’s foreign policy this campaign season. But as Foreign Policy’s Daniel Drezner points out, most of Romney’s op-ed is “pretty silly.”

Romney criticized Obama’s “strategic pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region he announced late last year, calling it “vastly under-resourced:”

Despite his big talk about bolstering our military position in Asia, President Obama’s actions will inevitably weaken it. He plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding, shrink our Air Force, and slash our ground forces.

While Air Force chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said recently that Air Force cut backs won’t “be easy” but “manageable,” those reductions and the overall long-term troop cuts that are part of the new military strategy don’t have anything to do with Obama’s new Asia-Pacific strategy. In fact, the Obama administration is increasing the U.S troop presence in the region and helping to upgrade Taiwan’s F-16 fleet. Moreover, Romney’s claim that Obama “plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding” is false. “The great irony,” CAP’s Lawrence Korb noted back in October, “is that the level of nine [ships], which Obama has proposed, is higher than at any time during the [George W.] Bush administration.”

Aside from the military side of Romney’s baseless attacks, Drezner points out that the former Massachusetts governor omitted the economic and diplomatic components of Obama’s pivot:

Left unmentioned were the diplomatic components (joining the East Asia Summit, interceding on the South China Sea, warming relations with Myanmar, tripartite between the U.S., Australia and India) as well as the economic components (ratifying the FTA with South Korea, signing the framework agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership). This is important, because any U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific region has to be a full-spectrum approach, while Romney seems peculiarly obsessed with shipbuilding.

“To be blunt,” Drezner adds, “this China policy reads like it was composed by the Hulk. Maybe this will work in the GOP primary, but Romney and his China advisors should know better.”

Economy

Michigan Gov. Endorses Romney, Doesn’t Mention Their Conflicting Stances On Auto Rescue

By Travis Waldron on Feb 16, 2012 at 10:35 am

Last November, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) told Republican presidential candidates to stop second-guessing the rescue of the automobile industry that saved thousands of jobs in his state. “I would have had some differences on how they did it, but I’m not going to second-guess it,” Snyder told the New York Times. “The more important thing is the results. And the auto industry is doing very well today.”

Today, Snyder endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), a candidate who opposed the auto bailout at the time, second-guessed it as it was happening, attempted to take credit for it when it was working, and finally second-guessed it again this week. But in his Detroit News editorial endorsing Romney, Snyder never mentioned the auto rescue or his and Romney’s conflicting stances on it, even though Romney had published an editorial on the topic in the same paper just three days ago. Instead, Snyder suggested voters focus on Romney’s business acumen and his ties to the state:

A little more than a year ago, Michigan voters put their trust in a businessman to serve as their governor. They were looking for someone who understands the private sector and has a plan for reversing the economic decline that had befallen our great state. [...]

He has deep ties to our state. Mitt understands the challenges confronting Michigan as few Americans do.

With the Michigan primary approaching, Romney has played up his ties to the state and its auto industry. But his editorials about the auto rescue — the first, from 2009, was titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt“; the second published Tuesday — raise questions about whether he understood the circumstances surrounding the rescue or how many jobs the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler would have cost the American economy.

Romney called for the two automakers to go into managed bankruptcy handled by the private sector. As Yahoo! Autos reporter Justin Hyde points out, though, the private sector wasn’t willing to make the loans necessary to keep the companies in business through a managed bankruptcy. Had they followed the Romney path, the companies likely would have liquidated, healthier automakers like Ford and Toyota (and their suppliers) would have been threatened, and an estimated 1.3 million Americans would have been out of work.

Instead, the auto industry is healthy, hiring, and posting record profits. The difference in those two paths is significant. To Snyder and Romney, however, it apparently isn’t worth mentioning.

NEWS FLASH

Egyptian Official: GOP Has ‘Really Strange Ideas About Arabs,’ ‘Cannot Be Reasoned With’ | Former Arab League secretary-general and Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa sat down with Foreign Policy magazine recently to discuss the Arab Spring and Egypt’s post-revolution future. But the conversation also turned to U.S. politics. While Moussa said he is “disappointed” in President Obama — sentiment that mirrors much of the Arab world, mainly due to a failure to meet high expectations — the former Arab League head scorned Obama’s Republican challengers for president. “[They] have really strange ideas about Arabs,” Moussa said, adding, “For example, look at what Newt Gingrich said about Palestine, when he stated that there are no Palestinian people. These positions are unacceptable and cannot be reasoned with.”

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