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Friday, September 28, 2012


Mitt Romney And The Dream Team 
In one week the country will witness the first debate between President Obama and the Republican Candidate Mitt Romney. Up till this point in time, most Americans have made up their mind as to which of the two candidates they will vote for. But there are certain number of people, like myself, who are wondering who would be the better choice. As a professional who has served in the Nixon,  Ford,  Reagan and Bush Sr administrations I was really quite apolitical in that I was honored to serve both the country and the Office of the Presidency. Only twice in my professional life was I asked to help out in a specific and minor way when it came to Bush Sr preparations for the debates against Michael Dukakis. At the time, I was able to develop a quick sketch of the candidates’ respective personalities and evaluating what their strength and weaknesses were. And a team of experts were able to implement those suggestions. That team consisted of some of the most prominent and experienced Republican statesmen and operatives, I have ever had the opportunity to work with.  First and foremost , James Baker III was the leader and elegant executor of what he felt would be appropriate for his close friend George H. W, Bush Sr.  Next in line, was one  of the most brilliant communications experts I had ever met who was judicious, funny and quick –witted. His name has become a household brand –Roger Ailes. He not only got Nixon elected but Bush Sr as well. He understood how to implement my and other suggestions into a strategic Television and communications format that would convincingly convey the message of Bush Sr who by disposition was not a glib, histrionic speaker, but in contrast, was a serious, intense, brilliant analyst and former Director of the CIA [not often seen as an asset in a Presidential election]. But the man who held the entire process of Baker’s and Ailes initiatives was and still is a exceedingly competent, truly brilliant economist and operational workhouse, whose past and future accomplishments completely overwhelmed me. His name has also become a world- renown sobriquet for fiscal sobriety and operational competency.  His name is Robert Zoellick.  Eventually as many of you might know he went on to become Mr State Department under Secretary of State James Baker [in my opinion the best Sec State I had ever worked for]. From there Zoellick went on to work for Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs, and then returned to become  the Director of the US International Trade Commission  where he negotiated countless treaties all over the world. Incidentally, he had a very talented deputy by the name of Ambassador John Huntsman who would later become an exceedingly skilled Ambassador to both Singapore and China [under the Obama Administration] and a Republican candidate for the Presidency [which I must admit I supported very wholeheartedly]. So why do I mention all of these outstanding Republican Senior officials at this time before the first debate? 

The reason I have mentioned them is that these aforementioned individuals are all part of the amazing team of advisors that are on Mitt Romney’s team. Not only are these Republican professionals on Mitt’s team but I know of others like Ambassador Richard Williams who was an outstanding Reagan political and State Department intellect and operative. Also included in this Dream Team is someone I had the opportunity to work with but is often considered quite controversial and that is Ambassador John Bolton who despite his appropriate public criticism of the United Nations, he , nevertheless , afforded me the financial back-up when I was DAS for East Asia and the Pacific to underwrite the basis of the disarming of the Khmer Rouge and the strategic implementation of the 1991 Paris Peace Conference on Cambodia. He never took the deserved credit for that. So,  here we are , with some of the Republican advisors whom I know personally to be quite competent and capable to bring any Republican candidate into the White House especially at a time when the economy is at it’s low , congress is in disgrace, and foreign policy is in a disarray. So why is Mitt not doing better? 

Unfortunately, the problem lies not within the Dream Team but with Mitt. As a political psychiatrist who has treated and worked with countless politicians and Presidents , I would only resort to one simple question that I hope that Romney would consider before the debates. And that question,  without sounding too reductionist or Freudian [ I was never really a fan of this neurologist addicted to cocaine] is quite simple: Why did you, Mitt,  have to distance yourself politically and really personally from your incredibly brave and astute father, George Romney? Why did you shy away from your father’s brave and true statement that he made when he came back from a Vietnam tour that ‘the generals, politicians, and diplomats’ were lying to him. He was right. He may in your mind have lost the election because of that statement. But I feel that your flight from your father’s and mother’s courage as individuals and politicians may have cost you the election.  All  contests whether political or not, boil down to several simple truths! Who are you? And what do you want? And how much are you willing to pay for what you want?
 Churchill once responded that the most important determination in political success as both as candidate and a leader is courage-not Machiavellian calculations.
The key question I have for you, Mr. Romney, is: do you have the courage before these debates to ask yourself those aforementioned questions and answer them honestly . Not to God. Nor to your wife. Nor to your Dream Team. But to yourself.
If so, good luck!!! L’audace! L’audace! Toujours L’audace!         

10 comments:

  1. Mitt Romney's foreign policy advisors are largely neoconservative. There are some 'realists', but reports indicate the neoconservatives are the most influencial in Romney's inner circle.

    In my opinion this is not only problematic, but dangerous, given the neoconservatives' penchant for "turning up the temperature on the international pressure cooker."

    In terms of foreign policy, I do not see Romney's neoconservative advisers as a dream team.

    To put it simply, Mitt Romney is no George Romney. It's hard for a son to watch an admired father fail to achieve a worthy goal.

    From what I know (admittedly I don't know a lot of George Romney's proposed policies in '68) it seems George Romney was a man of principle, who was willing to take his chances in persuading his fellow Americans his policies were the right policies at the right time and he had the competency (demonstrated in the auto industry and Michigan governor's office) to successfully impliment those policies, such that he was worthy of being elected president -- letting the chips fall where they may.

    I think George Romney genuinely wanted to help people, and in the presidency, the American People, as a whole.

    (Of course, I can't read minds, I can only go on the outward available evidence at hand.)

    Mitt Romney, on the other hand, seems more interested in achieving the position, itself, than implimenting conviction inspired policies. Mitt's policy positions seem to be based on political expediency. It appears to me that long-thought out policy positions built on personal conviction is not the driving force for Mitt Romney -- rather, winning an office his father failed to achieve is his overweening ambition, but this is not a sufficient rational for election to the highest office in the land.

    Whether a "Dream Team" or not, policy advisers and election consultants can not make the man or his policies. The man (or women) must already have the 'right stuff'. They can only help present the candidate in the best light based on what is already there -- inside the man. They help present his policies in the most persuasive and effective manner, so the man, the message, and his policies, are in front of the American People in the most compelling light.

    All indications are Mitt Romney is a synthetic candidate shaped by a desire to win the most votes and, thus, office, not to impliment the best policies for all Americans.

    (Not that Obama is any better in my estimation.)

    So, should Mitt Romney exercise courage -- what would he draw on?

    I don't know and I'm not sure even Mitt Romney knows.

    At this point, it's too late to take a gut-check on what Mitt Romney really believes in his soul and communicate that to the people.

    This cake was baked long-ago, Romney is at the mercy of his advisers and they can only do so much -- at this late date, there is no inner Mitt of conscience to draw on, only the synthetic persona constructed by others.

    Confronted with that reality must be the loneliest feeling in the world.

    I'd rather have an inner belief system that is incapable of winning an election, but reflects my deepest understanding of what the reality and truth is in this world and based on that understanding have ideas which can help people.

    So much of what is good in life is simply helping people.

    Building a fire on the beach and being happy a strolling couple stop to warm themselves and enjoy the moment; such are the simple pleasures in life and the basic building blocks for helping humanity.

    If that sentiment exists inside Mitt Romney, that's what he must draw on.



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  2. Vote Romney - you vote Netanyahu, you vote for war, you vote for dead Americans and dead Persians and dead people around the planet.
    You vote for a zionist grip on the USA even tighter than under Obama.
    Vote Obama and you clearly vote for a person who is usurping the office of President as being a dual citizen at birth not a natural born one as the Senate itself stipulated in the case of John McCain. You vote for a man who with Republican assistance has finished turning the USA into a fascist and police state.
    Vote third party, vote gary Johnson. Vote anything you like but refuse to vote for the Teedledee and Tweedledum taking the USA and world to perdition and worse.

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    1. I think we need to do something more effective than vote for a third party candidate. First we have to organize a mass movement that is strong enough to field a third party candidate that can win. Please come to Webster Tarpley's Anti-austerity Conference October 27 noon to 6pm 56 Walker Street Tribeca Manhattan NYC. I'll see you there!

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  4. My sources indicate that John Bolton is the source of that Islamphobic video that was the start of the campaign that ended in the murder of Stevens. The neocons around Romney are the ones who did 9/11. George H.W. Bush has a 60-year career in crime that is unequaled in American history. These are your "fine officials"?

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  5. Steve, I think you must have gotten some death threats to be talking like this.

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  6. Come on, Steve - this is the most transparent bullshit in the world, and I'm sure you know it better than anyone. Mitt the Twitt is not the problem except in that he is too clueless to take advantage of the dirty tricks provided by the Dream Team. The problem is the "Dream Team" which did 9/11 and the Stevens murder.

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  7. I keep thinking of more responses to your very strange statement. George Romney did say he had been "brainwashed" by the Pentagon and the CIA about Vietnam. That might have been the only honest thing he ever said, which explains why he didn't get the Presidential nomination. Well if Mitt is being lied to as your statement implies, who is lying to him? Why, the "Dream Team", who else? I will therefore take your real statement as being a list of the major people responsible for 9/11 - as well as Vietnam, the assassination of Kennedy, Iran-Contra, all the other War on Terror false flag events and now the murder of Stevens. Nice job, but now what we need is not for Mitt Romney to find out the "Dream Team" is lying to him, but for Obama and Clinton to figure out who really murdered their ambassador.

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  8. Maybe I spoke too soon about this blog being honest.Somehow everyone seems to get compromised. The forces must be overwhelming.
    May have to delist this blog off my favorites.

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    1. Piecznik clearly is under enormous pressure or he would not have made that weird statement. The Alex Jones interviews sounded real to me. Piecznik is torn between staying "inside" on the CFR while using Alex Jones to let some real information out. This blog statement pretends to take back what he said there to give him cover, but it is transparently obvious bullshit.

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