Romney plays to Tea Party base with latest attacks over Diplomat deaths

In a press conference held yesterday, Mitt Romney, again reiterated a point made by his camp in a statement released to the press Tuesday night (Sept. 11) which claimed the Obama administration had failed to condemn the attacks on US Embassies in Egypt and Libya that resulted in the deaths of four diplomats. Romney also said that Obama sympathized with the attackers.




The talking point that Obama either sympathizes with or apologizes for our attackers (and is therefore, further indication of his being un-American or unpatriotic), is currently being parroted by the Republican party's opinion makers and leaders. 

RNC Chairman hops on the bandwagon

This sort of rhetoric is part of a nationalistic thread that dominates Tea Party speeches and literature and also ties into the movement's paranoia about a sort of foreign invasion, as it is perceived that America is being infiltrated by foreigners who conspire to destroy the country. The movement's views about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers are ideological and fundamentalist and their highly restrictive understanding of both leaves little or no room for debate. As a result, those who disagree with the Tea Party's interpretation of the Constitution and National Values are routinely labeled un-American: 

Tea Party supporters couple a deep belief in America's greatness with a narrow understanding of what makes America great.  As reflected in Santelli's rant and countless other Tea Party declarations, the Tea Party's constitutional vision consists of a small set of familiar conservative and libertarian principles—individual liberty, free markets, low taxes, limited federal power, and states' rights—that Tea Party supporters identify as the fundamental constitutional principles laid down by the founding fathers.[38]  The Tea Party movement articulates all of its policy positions in terms of these basic principles.  The Tea Party opposes the recent health care reform law, financial sector bailout, and proposed cap-and-trade legislation because they curtail liberty.  These initiatives interfere with the free market, violate the principle of limited government, increase federal taxes, and decrease the states' power.[39]  To the Tea Party movement, these basic principles represent the fundamental values that underlie the American way of life.[40] 

The Tea Party movement perceives these foundational American principles to be under attack by foreign and un-American forces variously denominated "progressives," "globalists," "socialists," and "collectivists," who threaten America's very existence.[41]  Rhetoric of foreign invasion and foreign infiltration dominates Tea Party speeches and literature.[42]>  Tea Party supporters perceive that foreign forces are succeeding in taking over the United States, transforming the country they love into an unrecognizable and alien land.[43]  Employing militantly nationalist rhetoric, the Tea Party movement seeks to combat the supposed foreign takeover by re-establishing true American values.[44]

Tea Party supporters routinely demonize as un-American anyone who supports policies that conflict with what they perceive to be fundamental American values.[45]  They describe President Obama, in particular, as foreign.[46]  He is sometimes described as literally foreign by so-called "birthers," who assert that he was not born in the United States.[47]  He is sometimes described as religiously foreign by those who believe he is secretly a Muslim living in a Christian nation.[48]  He is sometimes described as racially foreign by those who consciously or unconsciously hold race-based ideas of what it means to be a true American.[49]  But perhaps most often, he is described as ideologically foreign because he does not adhere to the Tea Party movement's notions of small government, low taxes, and free markets.[50]  All of these points of view share the core Tea Party message: President Obama and his liberal supporters are foreign usurpers, not real Americans, and all true patriots must rise up to defeat them before they destroy everything that is great about America.[51]

 The "Team Romney" press debacle has been widely seen as just that. However, the move was a bit more calculated. In reality, Romney was singing volumes to the Tea Party.