David Corn has a good post on Governor Romney’s continued insistence that President Obama doesn’t understand America. After reviewing the remarks by West and Nugent, Corn ties this in neatly with Romney’s nudge nudge wink wink speeches painting Obama as a Kenyan and a Muslim.
Romney routinely criticizes Obama as someone who neither likes America nor gets it. . . . He repeatedly charges that Obama does not truly understand this nation or grasp that America is special. As if Obama were an outsider.
He wraps up with this:
Romney doesn’t call Obama a commie. He doesn’t question his birthplace. He doesn’t say the president is a criminal. He doesn’t suggest he’s Muslim-y. He doesn’t declare that Obama hates America or harbors anti-American views. But Romney has welcomed the backing of those who make these types of claims, and he has even courted these over-the-top Obama foes (as he did with Nugent, after the gun-lovin’, aging rocker had violently threatened Obama and Hillary Clinton). He legitimizes and exploits those who engage in Obama hate-mongering and who debase the political discourse Romney claims to care about. More important, with his own words, Romney has attempted to reinforce the notion that Obama is not truly part of the nation he leads. He has mainstreamed the Obama-ain’t-really-American meme of the right. And that is hardly civil.