What's this? An unexpected forum question?

The small audiences that presidential candidates encounter on the campaign trail in New Hampshire are mostly friendly and intimate. When the candidates do a Q&A-type town hall meeting, the Q's usually play right into the candidate's talking points. It's a technique perfected by President Bush and, in this election cycle, Hillary Clinton.

But, occasionally, someone in the audience violates the rules, sending campaign aides into head-shaking mode because unexpected turns violate their event game plan.

Friday night, as a Times staffer watched, Mitt Romney got one of those questions in the American Legion Hall in Rochester, N.H. It came from the middle of an audience so friendly that one member had Mitt's name sewn onto the back of his sweatshirt.

Having lauded Bush's tax cuts as a "courageous thing" and "a great thing for our country," Romney was asked by one man why he had refused to endorse the tax cuts when Bush first proposed them. Wasn't that being hypocritical? the questioner wanted to know.

No, replied Romney, stumbling briefly. What he had said back then, the former governor said, was "Look, I'm busy being governor ... and I'm not weighing in on federal issues." Recovering rhetorically, Romney added: "Sen. McCain is different. He voted against the tax cuts twice. I was governor of a state, not a senator."

The questioner, identifying himself later only as "Sam," was surrounded later by tsk-tsking Romney aides, who accused him of being a plant from the McCain campaign. Gee, who would suspect such antics could happen among grown-up campaigns competing to lead the entire country?

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Mark Earhart]

I agree very much with most of what Joel has to say. I have only two objections. First, I respectfully submit that everyone learn the difference between democracy and a Constitutional Republic, which is what we are, and always have been. Second, I am equally outraged by the Democrats and Republicans with the exception of one man. That man is Ron Paul, who is the only candidate I will vote for in the primaries and then the Presidential election of 2008. I firmly believe that he is the only honest patriotic American remaining in Congress, and think he would be an ideal candidate for the restoration of our lost liberties.
Mark Earhart 12/23/07

9/11 Truth Manifesto
Joel S. Hirschhorn
Online Journal
Friday December 21, 2007
For evidence that America’s political system is a criminal conspiracy, open your mind to piles of new analyses that prove beyond doubt that the official 9/11 story is a lie. Years of a bipartisan cover-up of 9/11 lies make it much more than one horrendous past event. It endures in infamy as a symptom of a corrupt and dishonest government.
Every day we pay for what 9/11 and its cover-up have burdened us with, including the costly Iraq war and the erosion of the rule of law and constitutional rights. Power elites have suppressed the truth because they fear what will happen when the public understands that 9/11 was not accomplished solely by foreign terrorists.
Technically sound analyses of what happened at the World Trade Center have unequivocally shown that the official 9/11 story is not credible (www.ae911truth.org). Truth seekers have met their burden of proof; the government has not met theirs. Simply put, controlled demolition brought down three buildings, not fires from the impact of planes on two of them. Not only was the US government involved, it has also conspired to hide the truth from the public. Why? Republican and Democratic politicians and power elites fear that 9/11 truth will remove what little public trust remains in government. The truth will produce political instability, perhaps breaking the two-party stranglehold on our political system. And it should. And it must, if we are to finally obtain the deep political reforms our nation desperately needs.
The decline started before George W. Bush and his criminal co-conspirators accelerated it with their blatant disregard for the rule of law and our Constitution. It will continue, even with a Democratic administration, unless we reform our political system. We must remind Americans that our nation was born in an insurrectionist, populist rebellion against political tyranny -- and that 9/11 teaches us that we need a Second American Revolution. We must destroy the domestic Axis of Arrogance of our plutocracy more than fear a foreign Axis of Evil. How?
A vast nationwide grassroots 9/11 truth movement is ignored by the mainstream news media. Its success will be the catalyst for renewing American democracy. It will produce a shock wave that rattles the brains of all Americans: Shock therapy from a truth so powerful and unsettling that Americans finally see the decline of American democracy that allowed 9/11 and its cover-up.
Make no mistake, the 9/11 truth movement holds the future of the United States. We are not subversive “conspiracy theorists” or enablers of foreign terrorism. We are patriotic warriors working to nullify group delusion produced by government propaganda. Dozens of books and websites reveal countless technical contradictions and inconsistencies with the official government 9/11 story and the laws of physics. The weight of the evidence supports one painful verdict: Our federal government played a role, probably through a large “black op.” The “why” is obvious: To justify an unjust war to serve corporate interests and greed.
Here is our opportunity: To make 9/11 the tipping point for American democracy renewal. Our enemies fear that if this movement succeeds, their plutocratic, elitist cabal -- the Axis of Arrogance -- run by the two-party duopoly will collapse. Corruption keeps our political system stable -- truth must clean it up. Instability is the necessary price for restoring democracy.
A paradigm shift
9/11 lies have sustained the ruling terrorism-threat paradigm. 9/11 truth must energize a new political-reform paradigm. Patriotism framed as defending the nation against terrorism must be replaced by patriotism focused on repairing American democracy.
Already, status quo protectionists lie about us to defeat our movement. Things will get worse as our movement draws closer to bringing down the corrupt political system. And we are getting closer. Only 16 percent of Americans believe that members of the Bush administration are telling the truth about what they knew about terrorist attacks on the US prior to 9/11, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. But what people say in polls is not the same as coming out publicly and vociferously for 9/11 truth, or seeing the roots of 9/11 in the decay of American democracy, not merely the actions of a few evil people.
The deceived public must be re-educated to see the arrogant power elites running our national plutocracy as worse than radical Islamic terrorists. Paul Craig Roberts captured the essence of the problem: “Americans think their danger is terrorists. They don't understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. . . . The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism. Americans just aren't able to perceive that.”
9/11 is a history lesson to inform the nation about democracy's decline. As John McMurtry asked, “So which goes -- the faith in America’s greatness and goodness in the world, or the facts which disclose the opposite at the very top?” We must always remember that Americans are better than their government. They do not get the government they deserve. They get the government that the rich and powerful impose. That must end.
We confront more than power elites. There is psychological resistance of millions of Americans to painful 9/11 truth -- a shameful, “unthinkable” truth about their elected government. Even if they have doubts about the official story, they instinctively recoil and erect mental barriers to block out the full truth. They want to keep believing that they live in a great democracy. They want to believe that when the Bush administration is replaced our democracy will be in good shape again. Hard to accept that 9/11 truth could not have been suppressed this long without the tacit or explicit approval of Democratic politicians and power brokers.
It is as if we are telling children that their parents are mass murderers. Distracted, time-poor, depressed, politically disengaged, cynical and insecure Americans do not want to hear that their government had a hand in 9/11. That for years their two-party-controlled government has blatantly lied to them. That thousands of good Americans have died and been terribly injured in a war propped up by the false-flag 9/11 fiction. In sum, that despite elections a vast criminal conspiracy has been so successful for so long. Such thoughts hurt.
Also, political instability is scary to ordinary Americans. But stability based on corruption and lies is destructive. Only when Americans see 9/11 as a political attack (by Americans on Americans) -- not solely a terrorist attack (by foreigners on Americans) -- will they understand that revealing 9/11 truth must lead to major political reforms. Instability is the cost of democracy renewal.
Here are powerful messages: The collapse of the rule of law is more important than the collapse of buildings. Countless more have died because of 9/11 than on 9/11. The events of 9/11 ultimately are less important than the reasons for and consequences of 9/11.
As John McMurtry said, “[9/11] allowed an illegitimate administration to transmute into America’s patriotic champion at war -- above accountability and the rule of law. ‘defending America from another terrorist attack’ became a political blank check for corporate corruption of government expenditures with impunity, war criminal acts and threats across the Islamic and alternative Third World, and attacks on civil rights and commons at home.” All this persists as 9/11 lies persist.
Despite record-low levels of public trust in Congress and the president, too many Americans still believe that elections are the path to major political reforms. Despite a solid history of campaign lies from politicians, and overwhelming belief that the nation is on the wrong track, Americans keep hoping that they can vote their way into a better future. Most Americans do not have a Boston Tea Party mentality. They are unready to revolt despite revolting conditions. Our truth movement must help Americans accept painful truth and its political fallout. We must put all the technical truth discovered by reputable scientists and engineers to work for systemic reforms.
We must do more than oust the official story and obtain a new 9/11 investigation that now has wide support by hundreds of respected Americans (www.patriotsquestion911.com). We must guide Americans into a more patriotic and courageous mental state. We must help Americans become outraged and rebellious, yet also optimistic about major political reforms.
Political strategy
Success against the power elites running and ruining our nation requires building an army of Americans openly revolting against the two-party corporatist state now in control. The 9/11 truth movement must use political strategies to defeat the status quo political establishment. Here are three actions.
First, with detailed technical analyses unequivocally proving that the official story is false, the movement can draft a bill that might be titled The 9/11 Truth Act of 2008. This proposed federal legislation should be delivered to every member of the House and Senate early next year. It would clarify the investigation: What its scope and objectives must be. What reliable entity, public or private or a combination, must be used. How the public must be given opportunities to present information. What resources must be provided and what time frame must be adhered to.
We must take the initiative and specify exactly what kind of new official 9/11 investigation is necessary, recognizing that professionals in the truth movement have limited resources and cannot address all questions. The 9/11 truth movement itself must define exactly what the first real credible and comprehensive government sponsored investigation must consist of. We can have no confidence in anything that the political establishment might devise to silence our movement. We must tell the public, the media and the political world what is required to reveal the total truth as to what caused, for example, the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, especially building 7 not even hit by a plane.
Developing and submitting this legislation must then be followed up by all 9/11 groups urging their supporters to bombard Congress with demands for hearings and passage of the bill. This is the way to engage more Americans politically to obtain full 9/11 truth.
However, few politicians’ comments support the truth movement. A rare statement came from presidential candidate Ron Paul. In a radio interview last January, he said that the 9/11 investigations to date are “more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on.” However, later in the year when he became more visible he was asked about the possibility of the official story being orchestrated by the government. He said emphatically “absolutely not.” In another interview, when asked whether he thought 9/11 was an inside job that our government made happen, he responded forcefully “No.” So apparently Paul sees a cover-up but not about the involvement of our government. Would he support legislation for a new investigation?
Thus the second critical political action is this: Proclaim that only politicians that actively support passage of our legislation will earn support in the 2008 elections from the millions of Americans doubting the official 9/11 story. This threat is an absolute necessity. If the legislation is not passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, then we must aggressively support a boycott on voting for all Democrats and Republicans in the 2008 federal elections.
Third, all those committed to 9/11 truth should honor what the framers gave us in our Constitution in case some day Americans lost confidence in the federal government, especially in Congress. That day has arrived. 9/11 was that day. They gave us the option in Article V for a convention of state delegates to propose constitutional amendments. We must see SYSTEM reforms as only achievable through constitutional amendments that Congress will never propose nor achieve through normal legislation.
Congress and the entire elitist political establishment have intentionally denied us a convention for over 200 years. The one and only requirement in Article V has more than been satisfied by over 500 state applications from all 50 states. Enough is enough. Our truth movement should join the effort of Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org by urging truth group members to join FOAVC. The political establishment fears both 9/11 truth and an Article V convention. We must grasp that 9/11 truth can bring us to the brink of political reforms and the convention is the process to obtain them.
Conclusion
The 9/11 truth movement must also be a political movement -- but not in any partisan sense. 9/11 truth can help Americans take back their country. 9/11 truth can end the criminal, corrupt and conniving plutocracy that stole our government and mutilated our democracy.
We must transform 9/11 from a catalyzing event for imperialistic war-mongering to one for democracy renewal. We must convert terrorist-transfixed fear into political reform enthusiasm.
The pursuit of truth is not always the pursuit of happiness -- not when the truth hurts. The 9/11 truth movement is not about finding immediate happiness. It is about rebooting American democracy and, after accomplishing that, earning happiness

[Robert Thompson]

McCain loves to side with the Democrats often. Not sure why he is trying again at the Republican nomination when he doesn't support its principles.

[JD]

I like Romney. He already looks and acts like the best president that we have had yet! I would be proud to show him off to the international community. He has a great presence and a commanding masculine voice. He does have good explanations once you get down to it. I think that he is the only qualified candidate to turn this country around. Look at his resume and experience. It's amazing. He helped launch Domino's Pizza, Staples, and many other big companies. This man has great ambition, intelligence, and morals. It would be a shame if he did not make it to the white house!!!

[serena1313]

Punishing public dissent is a form of repression used by authouritarian type governments. In contrast what defines America is the freedom to openly disagree.

As the "president" of the "United" States Bush allows only pre-selected, Bush-friendly supporters into his public events. Those whose support is in question or doubt are denied entry. Although the vetting process filters out most, discovery of individuals wearing a T-shirt, a pin, carrying a sign etc. depicting sentiments critical of Bush's policies will be and have been escorted out and/or arrested, even those in quiet attendance.

Numerous examples abound. One particular case involved someone, pretending to be a Secret Service agent, refused a group of 3 into a Bush event simply because the bumper sticker on their car, although not directly aimed at Bush, was not wholly supportive of his policies. The group filed charges. Despite being thwarted at every turn in attempts just to find out the name of the person impersonating a SS agent finally won. Nevertheless the fact that this has occurred and is occurring in America ought to be cause for alarm.

Likewise similar sentiments spilled over into the public arena, too. For instance individuals walking thru a shopping malls wearing clothing with symbols or text displaying opposition to the Iraq war/occupation, and/or Bush's policies have been threatened with arrest unless they leave the premises immediately. Likewise airline personnel forced passengers to conceal anti-Bush attire, even if it meant turning their shirt inside out; others, not as lucky, are escorted off the airplane.

Americans may not always agree with their president, however, it is rare for a president to completely ignore them and even rarer to have them arrested. Disallowing individuals freedom of expression is one thing, but arresting them merely for disagreeing is quite another; It is absolutely shocking. If challenging the president, the government and/or a presidential candidate means threat of arrest or removal from an event or a public place, then Americans need to reassess whether such actions are acceptable and thus permanent.

What defines America is freedom -- to openly disagree, express dissatisfaction, argue for change, et al. However the concept of Freedom and/or the loss thereof is not within Bush's realm of comprehension. While ignorant of the fact citizens can disagree with and support their president simultaneously may explain his indifference, Bush's intolerance is inexcusable, notwithstanding.

Electing a president who represents all Americans rather than a select few, after 7 years of the latter, will be a welcomed reprieve. Nevertheless the imprint of an unenlightened, incurious president calloused to the people's needs whose legacy is defined by repression will have lasting effects for a long, long time. Perhaps Americans now realize maintaining freedom necessitates due diligence by a committed public will act on it.