Romney in London

London Bridge is Falling Down

This entire mini-affair is an example of the rules we are playing by. Scandals will be manufactured and transformed into narratives in the blink of an eye.  A Republican candidate either has to be completely robotic or so charismatic and natural that no one cares about any of the attacks made against him.

The narrative is that Romney’s London trip is full of gaffes. The reality is that Romney simply commented on actual events. The same events being covered widely in the same British newspapers playing up the story.

“It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” Romney told NBC. “There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials… that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”

Obviously when you have to dispatch thousands of soldiers to fill in for a hole in your security that is not a good sign and there’s a long list of problems with the London Olympics.

For that matter here’s a story from the Washington Post from ten days ago hitting on the same theme.

“Ten days to the Games — what could go wrong?” a sarcastic headline in Britain’s Guardian newspaper asked Tuesday. The answer, as this Olympic host nation has discovered, is: Quite a lot.

Even as athletes begin arriving in London for the 2012 Summer Games, Olympic organizers are coming under fire over bungled security staffing and other issues that have prompted the British media and opposition lawmakers to already declare the event a “fiasco.”

This is much stronger language than Romney used.

Romney is a candidate making a global trip to show off his diplomatic skills, so he probably should not have commented on the problems with the London Olympics… then again Obama should probably not have compared his bad bowling to the Special Olympics. 

London Mayor Boris Johnson attacked Romney to warm up the crowd, which is understandable, this is the sort of thing that local politicians do. Prime Minister Cameron however reacted in a way that truly is a gaffe.

“We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” the prime minister said. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”

That’s a rather stupid thing to say considering that he may have to deal with a President Romney next year and it’s not as if Romney had said anything offensive about England. Salt Lake City is a good deal smaller than London, it’s about the size of York, but dragging them into a completely unnecessary fight is much worse diplomacy.

Johnson and Cameron welcomed a chance to turn from domestic criticism to xenophobia and the liberal media has hysterically seized on the opportunity. And yet despite all the screams of “Gaffe”, no one can quite explain the gaffe.

Here’s the narrative…

Elevating his tendency for gaffes to the international stage, Mr Romney said that because of concerns about security, it was “hard to know just how well it will turn out”.

...but where’s the gaffe? There isn’t one. Just a credible statement of opinion widely reflected in the same papers attacking him for that gaffe.

And this is the same treatment that has been prepped for Romney in every country he visits. Molehills will be turned into mountains and the same will scream GAFFE GAFFE GAFFE until it’s hoarse.

(...side note to Brits. If this were being held in New York or Chicago, the way Bloomberg and Obama wanted, I’m sure it would have ended up a complete mess.)

Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.

Daniel can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)