We Need a Bigger Navy: Part XIX: Romney Secret 47% Video
I have long thought somebody should go through and annotate the 2012 Mitt Romney: Full Transcript of the 47% Secret Video. So I will now do it.
Part XIX: We Need a Bigger Navy:
This is the type of thing that makes those of us experts who support Romney say: "He's just pretending to be this dumb. When he says that the navy is smaller than at any time since 1917 and the Air Force smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1946, he knows that the navy and air force aren't really weaker than they were then--he just wants to boobs in the debate audience to think that they are weaker."
Not a very high regard for the citizens of the United States of America, I must say...
And Obama's comeback--in the debate--is masterful:
The one thing Obama got wrong is that he did not believe that the Republican congressional leadership would decide that it was so enthusiastic about the sequester.
And, of course, once the Republicans decided to go for the sequester in early 2013, Romney no longer cared about the size of the navy and the air force. Urgent and important before the election. Not worth his time in the public sphere after.
[Recording interrupted...]
Romney: …and [our military spending is] about twice as much as China, not 10 times as much like it's reported. And we have responsibility for the whole world. They're only focused on one little area of the world, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, that's it. And they're building a military at a rapid rate. So this idea that somehow we've already spent so much money in the military—it's like, guys, don't overthink how strong we are.
We—you probably know it, this was a couple of years ago, but we had one of our aircraft carriers sailing by Japan, and the Chinese pulled up behind it in a diesel sub, in a super-quiet diesel sub, pulled up behind it. It could have been torpedoed. And, I mean, we're in that kind of—our Navy's smaller in number of ships than anytime since 1917, and this president wants to shrink it.
The list goes on. Our Air Force is older and smaller than anytime since '47 when the Air Force was formed, and he wants to shrink it. If we go the way of Europe, which is spending 1 to 2 percent of their economy on the military, we will not be able to have freedom in the world.
