During an appearance on the Bill Lumaye Show, a North Carolina radio program, Tagg Romney, the eldest son of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney explained how he wanted to “take a swing” at President Barack Obama during Tuesday’s presidential debate (emphasis added).
BILL LUMAYE: I’m going to ask something I think a lot of people want to know, or at least I do. What is it like for you to hear the President of the United States call your dad a liar. How do you react to that?
TAGG ROMNEY: Jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him. But you know you can’t do that because… Well, first there is a lot of Secret Service between you and him but also because this is the nature of the process.
While I’ve heard a lot of crazy things during the course of this presidential campaign, Tagg Romney’s comments about his desire to “take a swing” at the sitting President of the United States is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful. While I understand that many conservatives don’t respect President Obama as a man, I can’t fathom how Tagg Romney thinks his desire to assault the President of the United States is appropriate political campaign rhetoric.
Stupid comment? You bet! Credible threat? C’mon… everyone knows that when a Romney gets a chance to fight, he’ll flee to France!
Being named Tagg by his clueless father must have resulted in much playground joy for mini Romney when other children played the obvious rhyming games, as in “Tagg is a f–“, thus the latent rage, chip on the shoulder and lack of impulse control. The psychiatric bill over the decades must be staggering. I think the person he really wanted to charge the stage and beat was his old man.
Dear Tagg(translated as the priests son),if you want to swing at someone I am available. Your dad is a coward,his dad was a coward, and you and your siblings are cowards feel free.
It’s the culture.
I agree, this was a pretty lame comment by a man acting like a fool. However, this is what really has me tied up in knots today. I hope that EVERYONE, however you are voting, is outraged by this poisonous behavior. If not, I don’t know how we can call ourselves the UNITED States of America…: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weeklystandard.com%2Fblogs%2Fsecret-service-aware-threats-against-romney_654788.html&h=WAQHknuQn
Debbie, I have no doubt there have been (and will continue to be) threats made against Mitt Romney, but let’s be honest….there’s likely an equal number of threats made against our president.
Threats against a presidential candidate aren’t limited to one side of the political spectrum or the other, because there’s kooks on both sides.
Zack, in most situations, I would tend to agree with you. This recent Twitter rage of threats of riot and assassination seems to be seriously different. See my entry below. I also just tried to put the keywords “kill Obama _ _ _” in the Twitter search bar and found no direct threats to the president. I did see one young African American (his photo was on his Tweet) say, “ya’ll tweeting “ill kill romney”, “i’ll beat romney _ _ _” yall seem ignorant as _ _ _ _….and ya’ll make obama look bad. THIS is who he leads??” What do you guys think?
I think his was an honest reaction and the same of any family member in politics, they just don’t say it in a radio interview. We all know family members take it harder than the candidates themselves. Yeah, I suppose if someone was saying nasty things about my family member, I would want to swing at them too. But he was talking in the metaphorical sense. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s disgusting, disgraceful, or a real threat of assault. You must have forgotten 8 years of Bush which were FAR MORE disgusting and disgraceful. What short memories we have.
So now can we please get back to Big Bird?
I don’t see anything metaphorical about what Tagg Romney said. He was pretty clear that he wanted to jump out of his seat, rush down to the stage, and take a swing at President Obama….if not for that pesky Secret Service.
I’m willing to bet if the roles were reversed and a the son of a Democratic presidential candidate had made this comment about a Republican president, you’d find it disgraceful and disgusting.
About a week ago I read that there were a number of Tweets promising rioting if Obama fails to win the election, and earlier this week after the 2nd presidential debate I heard there were dozens–if not hundreds–of Tweets from real people threatening to asassinate Romney if he wins the election. Supposedly the Secret Service is aware of these activities, but I have no idea if anyone is being questioned/charged in all of this. You can click on the link in my comment above from yesterday (although you might NOT want to read the language used in these threats). I do know that this poisonous atmosphere motivated me to send for an absentee ballot for the first time. This threat of violence thing on Twitter is still bothering me. Am I the only one?
Debbie,
The Weekly Standard isn’t a credible source and should be avoided if one cares to stay informed about politics. Can you find an independent source – as in one that isn’t part of the Right Wing propaganda echo chamber? Can you verify these reports outside of The Examiner or Twitchy? I couldn’t.
I agree with FMSN. Tagg’s first reaction was an honest one. His first reaction was violence. I found it telling that the first thought restraining him from acting on his impulse was not that such an act would be morally wrong or an act of rash incivility, but that he couldn’t succeed and might get in trouble – that secret service were all around. It was a disgusting, morally questionable response for a forum historically designed to eliminate violence between rivals and to resolve in a more civilized fashion the family/clan vendettas that the entire Democratic idea itself was designed to eliminate. Tagg follows in his father’s footsteps and subverts the core principles of that very noble debate forum. This sort of behavior is instinctive within the Conservative culture – Conservatism is at its very core uncivilized and immoral, tribal and vengeful. And to be fair, the query Tagg answered was a leading question prompting a desired response that would play favorably to the Conservative base.
I also found Tagg’s honest gut reaction very interesting given Romney’s answer to gun violence where he went into an odd diatribe about initially curbing violence in children with “better parenting” – i.e. blaming violent youth on single mothers. Yet, here we are in a debate forum where Romney himself can’t behave with civility and apparently neither can his son. Dog eat dog, uber-competitive reactionaries both. Dog eat dog, winner take all, and vindictive rancor are exactly the cultural infections that are reducing this nation to brutal thralldom. Romney and Tagg represent precisely the brand of Conservative influence this country can do without.
Another thought that came to mind was Mitt’s reference to his sons during the debate – when he said something to the effect of having raised 5 boys he was accustomed to people lying to him. That alone was an odd admission and a peculiar way to make his point but, there too, was an honest response that reveals quite a lot about Romney’s parenting skills or lack thereof. The gaffes of father and son reveal how dishonest and impulsive both of them are. But, really, these are only confirmations of what we already knew about Mitt Romney. He’s as cold and calculating as they come. He’s as distant and disconnected from American decency as it gets.
PJ,
At your suggestion, I just did some original source research. I don’t know Twitter very well, but when I put the keywords “assassinate Romney” in the search bar, I counted at least 20 people who tweeted direct threats (with many more opposing them simply re-tweeting). I found at least 25 threats by using the phrase with bad language (like “kill Romney _ _ _”). Use misspellings of assassinate or other bad language, and you will find dozens, maybe hundreds more.
OK, I am just trying to find out what people on your blog think about this. There appear to be no major media outlets (outside of your sources that you say are not credible) reporting on this phenomenon. I am sickened by this, frightened for Romney (as I would be for Obama if this was happening to him), and appalled at the apathy of some people who seem to have the attitude of “Oh well”. At the very least, folks in the progressive camp should denounce these threats for the simple reason that they WILL turn people away from Obama. I do not like this horrible side of America, and I trust that most of you don’t, either.
Debbie,
I’m aware that you can find those tweets on Twitter itself and via Twitchy. But Twitchy isn’t a journalistic outlet and the origins of the tweets themselves are, at this point, unknown as far as I can tell. I did find a number of blogs and commentaries on the issue but all were outlets which manufacture extreme right wing hysteria and disinformation. None were investigative analyses. To my knowledge the secret service hasn’t issued any official statement regarding the “phenomena” allegedly occurring.
All the posts I read contained the same narrative – the one that you are expressing concern about. That is, the secret service, the public, and the media are paying no attention to these alleged threats, and with an underlying Conservative persecution narrative that insists that the Right wing hasn’t engaged in such atrocious behavior. At this point, it looks to me like typical Conservative propagandism designed to instill fear and divisiveness. I haven’t seen one respectable news source yet that has done any investigative reporting which verifies the credibility of this series of tweets. I’m not suggesting that none of them are genuine threats, they could very well be. But the spin disseminating throughout the Conservative blogosphere is that the secret service doesn’t take death threats of its protectees (and specifically, its Conservative protectees) seriously. That’s nonsense from the word go. I’ll weigh in on those matters when I receive information that I can trust after a thorough investigation.
As to the poisonous atmosphere created by those tweets and the ensuing Conservative commentaries about those tweets – it is a frightening state of affairs to be sure; it’s appalling, and ought to be condemned, but you are drawing conclusions from zero information about those tweets themselves. We really know nothing about them. As to these threats turning people away from Obama, that wouldn’t make sense to any rational being. Rational people are not going to turn away from Obama based on unverified tweets. Perhaps people who believe anything they read at first glance might turn against Obama, but I think it is more likely anyone not prone to hysteria would seek more information about this “phenomenon” of violent tweets. Anyone who did simply turn against Obama due simply to random tweets without knowing whether or not they are genuine would possess questionable judgement. I think the vast majority of Americans are more sensible than that.
I do think every American should be concerned about the state of our political discourse. At the same time, the hardline push for that poisonous atmosphere is coming from the extreme right end of the political spectrum. If we denounce violence and vicious aggression within the political sphere then we must do so at the level we see right here in this blog post. Start with Tagg Romney’s seriously inappropriate comments. You didn’t express outrage at them, you minimized them, calling them just “lame.” If you are truly concerned about a poisonous political atmosphere, condemn Tagg Romney and the Conservative blogosphere with as much vigor as you do the tweets of which you really know nothing about. If you want peace, engage peacefully; If you value non-violence support ideologies of peaceful engagement and cooperation. I think it’s pretty clear that Tagg and his dad are not promoters of peace, tolerance, and mutual understanding.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
President Obama is the leader of the free world. Tagg’s comment is a threat. The president may forgive Tagg, but I do not.
The Secret Service should not allow him on stage or anywhere near President Obama.
“I wish I were there. It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done,” said the former Massachusetts Governor. (http://www.mittromneysons.com/tagg-romney/) And Do you remember this? The liberal blogosphere is all abuzz with the “news” that Tagg Romney may be a partial owner in Hart Intercivic, company that makes voting machines. One Headline reads., “Tagg Romney Is Now Proud Owner Of Ohio’s Voting Machines.” That’s from Tagg folks! Have a god day. /Eric