Compare and Contrast

by Dee Newman

To demonstrate how fair and balanced they are, the news media has found it necessary to compare Mitt Romney's politically embarrassing “47 percent” remarks secretly recorded back in May to a four-year-old closed-door recording of then Senator Obama talking about how some working-class voters "cling to guns and religion" when things are not going so well for them economically. The parallels, they say, between the two events are salient.

But, are they? It’s true; they both expose the candidates candidly characterizing a voting segment of our country. But, Obama went on to tell his supporters that he not only understood why certain folks felt so “bitter’, but that he intended to seek their vote because he felt his plan would help them.

Conversely, Romney’s remarks present an entirely different perspective. Instead of defending the “47 percent”, Romney not only writes them off, he chastises them as government dependent "victims" who need to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Obama’s comments reveal a person who (back then) wanted to become president of all Americans, even to his embittered opposition. Romney, on the other hand, seems to believe that nearly half of our nation is composed of hopeless hostile parasites who do not warrant or deserve his concern.

To characterizes or compare the two events as analogous is ludicrous. The contrasts are too great.