Gary Johnson: Mitt is “without one molecule of brain”
The Libertarian Party nominee tells Salon that Obama’s as militaristic as Bush, and Romney’s simply “wacky nuts”
BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD in Salon
Excerpts:
It’s that at the end of the day I get to go home and I have a sense that what I’m doing is the right thing. Someone’s got to be out there talking about solutions that go with these problems we have, and I’m going to argue that neither one of them is talking about the solutions at all.
I mean Romney, in the second [GOP primary] debate, said that it’s a ‘no brainer’ to build a fence across the border. Um, Alex, you’re talking about somebody right now without one molecule of brain based on his statement. Building a fence across the border would be wacky nuts! And here it is — that’s what he wants to do.
And
[President Obama] should lose all of his votes just based on [betraying campaign promises about not targeting medical marijuana clinics]. And forget about the issue as much as just going back on his promise. He promised he would not raid medical marijuana facilities in states where legislatures or citizens voted to implement those programs. But he’s cracking down on medical marijuana in California and Colorado. 180 degrees from what he promised!
I also really thought we were going to get some really favorable movement on gay rights and marriage equality. And I was the last person who thought we were going to be in a military intervention situation under him, based on what he said during the campaign. But here we are. He is as militaristic as President Bush, as militaristic a president as we have ever had.
GJ’s comment was obviously just a quip on Romney calling his own policy proposal a “no-brainer,” but its out-of-context sound does look bad. “When Governor Romney calls building a fence on the border a n0-brainer, I presume he means that only people without brains would support it,” might have come off better. And yet I can still see an editor trying to get attention for his article summarizing that as “Johnson says Romney brainless.”
Johnson has definitely tightened and improved his summary presentation. But the Fair Tax is not a zero-tax environment for corporations, it is essentially an income tax without deductions, and as his proposal is revenue-neutral, it isn’t likely to kickstart anything. I’m not so much directly irritated by this sideways change in tax law as I am irritated that he wastes his limited talk time on it instead of on a libertarian proposal. He’d do better to focus on crony capitalist bailouts or regulation or regime uncertainty if he wants to make an effective libertarian point on the economy. Or spend the time on free trade or immigration or freeing the health care system.
GJ is losing his Zen here.
Romney is obviously one smart dude. While the statement is qualified, GJ should avoid such histrionics.
Obama the most militaristic ever? I guess you could somehow cobble together a case based on drone-usage, but more militaristic than Truman? Than LBJ?