Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

And let’s hope the adults follow these little children’s lead.  

With a hat tip to BooMan for alerting me to the story of Romney’s photo-op foray into West Phillie in search of education cred and “I like black folks, really I do, for Pete’s sake!” images; with a further hat tip to Bob Stanley down in the comments, who linked me to the hat-trick hat-tip Obama Diary, wherein Chipsticks compares and contrasts the sort of reaction kids have to the two contenders for the man who gets to decide for the next four years what their future’s going to look like.

I’m not saying that children have an inerrant BS detector, a spot-on radar for good guys and bad guys (that would be cats, of course), but the images below the fold tell their own story, doncha think?

For starters, let’s take a gander at Romney among the pickaninnies — er, I mean, in the midst of those nice little colored kids — ah, that is, the Mittman enjoying a visit with those nice photogenic schoolchildren at a Phillie inner-city school where the GOP hopeful convened a closed-door roundtable on education reform.  Not that he invited any of the parents or neighbors of the school (or even the mayor, for Pete’s sake) into the meeting to hear what they had to say, of course; I mean, who cares what the backdrop for a photo op thinks, right?  Which did not go unnoticed among the peasantry:


As word spread that Romney was there to discuss education reform in a closed-door, 90-minute roundtable, neighbors gathered outside the school to protest the visit. And residents had no friendly words for the GOP presidential candidate, especially when they learned he would not venture beyond the well-maintained walls of the school to the surrounding blocks, lined with rundown rowhouses.

“Why is he here?” asked Zulema Canty, 37, one of a few dozen people gathered outside the school. “A few months ago he said he didn’t care about the poor, he was more concerned with the middle class. . . . This just seems like some PR thing. And now he’s going to go on TV and say he was here, when really he wasn’t here.”

[snip]

By the time Mayor Nutter and District Attorney Seth Williams arrived for a news conference near the school aimed at criticizing Romney’s record on education, a crowd of 50 residents and Obama backers were gathered on the sidewalk. Chanting “Obama’s neighborhood” and “Down with Romney,” the irked neighbors initially booed Nutter and Williams, mistakenly believing they had asked Romney to come to the city.

“I did not invite Mitt Romney to 58th and Media!” Williams told the crowd. Nutter added that he had not, either.

Nutter then criticized Romney for making a trip into the heart of West Philadelphia and choosing not to step outside and speak with voters.

But enough of the adult rabble!  What of their innocent offspring, unsullied by grownup prejudices?  What did they think of the benevolent Future Leader of the Free World so graciously moving among their humble selves?

Lookee:

rom1

Can’t you just FEEL the excitement?

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You can tell how much Mittens is enjoying this, how in tune he is with his surroundings:

rom3

(Boggles) Does this guy have no self-awareness at all?  Why did no flunky spot this and save the Mittster from himself?

rom4

Okay, I think we have a pretty good idea of what those kids thought about Mister One Percent.  But what do they think of the Kenyan Muslim Socialist Islamo-Fascist Usurper In Chief?

Pete Souza’s photos (dunno where taken) suggest an answer:

obama1

Can we get a high five over here?

obama2

Aw, just….. dayyum:

obama3

[poll id=”

92

“]


5 comments

  1. fogiv

    I think the expression ‘out of touch’ is maybe the most overworked and abused cliche in US politics because, after all, what does it really mean? It’s pretty subjective. There are lots of ways to argue if a politician is in or out of touch, but there aren’t any real metrics for that, you know? It’s a perception.

    …and then there’s Willard Mitt Romney — a guy so plastic, so boring, so aloof, and so damned vapid that he manifests as a bioanimate exhibit of S. Doucheus Richicus on the cellar level of the Musee de Unlikable Internationale. The most ‘exciting’ thing anyone knows about this guy is that he was once (and likely remains) a bully, and was (and likely remains) a bigot. He is so hopelessly and obviously out of touch that he has literally become the metric by which one now measures political likability in a negative way.      

    To my mind, Barack Obama sets an unprecedented standard on the opposite end of that spectrum. In reality, the President may be isolated, insulated, distracted, or whatever, but there’s little or no perception amongst the observant that he’s out of touch. He’s likable, politics removed, and I don’t think that’s something W.M. Romney, Esq. can ever hope to aspire to.

    Speaking of being in touch, see also (from fellow Moose Mets102):  http://www.dailykos.com/story/

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