This “Anglo-Saxon heritage” story sounded unbelievable from the get-go. An unnamed Romney foreign policy adviser allegedly told the London Telegraph that Romney would usher in better relations with the UK because he understands the “Anglo-Saxon heritage” better than President Obama — a oddly-phrased comment that clearly has racial undertones.
It’s usually a good idea to be skeptical of sensational-sounding Telegraph stories about U.S. politics in the first place, but this article literally relies on a single unnamed source — and yet Washington reporters ran with it anyway. Now the Romney campaign says the story is false, according to WaPo:
An unnamed “adviser” to Mitt Romney who told the London Telegraph that the candidate appreciates “Anglo-Saxon heritage” better than President Obama is not speaking for the Republican campaign, a spokeswoman for the former Massachusetts governor said Wednesday.
“It’s not true,” Amanda Hennenberg said in a statement. “If anyone said that, they weren’t reflecting the views of Governor Romney or anyone inside the campaign.”
The quote has created an early dust-up between the two campaigns as Romney begins his low-key, week-long trip through Britain, Poland and Israel.
“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage,” an adviser told reporter Jon Swaine. “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.” The reporter later tweeted to clarify that the quote came from a “member of [Romney’s] foreign policy advisory team.”
Jen Rubin writes that the Obama campaign quickly began blasting the story out to reporters, which helped it go viral. It’s pretty clear the Obama campaign is scrambling to pump air into it. David Axelrod has been out front calling the “Anglo-Saxon” comment “unbelievably offensive.” Funny that a line Obama actually said himself is considered off-limits for criticism by his campaign, but an anonymous quote is fine to attack Romney.
WaPo also reports on the loose guidelines for anonymous quotes at the Telegraph:
Romney does have a team of 22 foreign policy and national security advisers, along with 15 working group chairs. British papers have looser guidelines on anonymous quotes than most of the American press. An “adviser” could have no actual role in the campaign; the Republican’s staff rarely talks to the foreign press.
The Telegraph in particular prints many rumors and blind quotes, often infuriating Democrats. “They use anonymous sources to a degree that makes you wonder if they actually have them,” consultant Bob Shrum told Dave Weigel in 2009.
Unless a reporter is able to verify who said this and what his role is in the campaign, Romney’s denial should put this story to rest.
Did the Romney camp Sununu again? n nYou know, you float this stuff, give it legs, let it get out and around to your target audience and then deny it later after the faithful have got their daily dose of resentment in. n nSeems to be this Governors mode of operation. It seems very cowardly. Like slapping someone and then running away before they can reply in kind.
Yeah, right, Because the Romney campaign has so much to gain by going after the racist vote. n nOh, I forgot; he's running against Obama, which for you is conclusive and irrrefutable proof of racism. n nShame on you for posting this garbage,
Hi ahadhaamoratsim n n nPost what garbage did 'I' post? n nDo an international news search.. from Australia to Asia, UK, Scotland, China.. this is an international story. n nI'm just commenting here .. seems to me your outrage is either feigned, or misplaced.
The garbage that not only gave credence to the anoymous source, but that also charges that this was a deliberate plant by the Romney campaign followed by a planned deliberate walk back, apparently to capture the racist vote. And then you charge, without support, that Romeny has a history of this kind of thing. n nSorry, if you throw slime, don't object when people say that your slime is garbage.
Are you really sure the story wasn't leaked (sorry placed) by the Obama White House?
My outrage is not feigned and it is not misplaced. The news searches may have chosen to run this fairy tale. You chose to repeat it and spin an even more ridiculous fairy tale to give it credibility. n nLet me put it another way. You may disagree with Gov. Romney and you may want him to be defeated. That is your privilege. That is no excuse for taking up unsubstantiated stories that defy logic, and then with even less substantiation, less logic and less basis in fact, to falsely claim that the story fits some non-existent pattern of behavior, in the absence of any evidence that the story is true or that the Governor's supposed pattern of behavior exists anywhere outside of your imagination. There is a word for people who engage in that kind of smearing, and it's not a pretty one. n nYou should be ashamed of your original post and even more ashamed of your defence. But I'm just commenting here.
Romneyism = Racism
Well, Yitzhak Shapira, whoever you are (and I suspect that you are a non-Jew who deliberately adopted a Hebrew screen name to give weight to his racist screeds about Israel), if anyone here is an expert on racism, it is certainly you.
Alana Goodman's post is misleading.The Romney camp did not deny that the quote was authentic. It simply disassociated the campaign from the remark.
How could they know where the quote came from? They can only say (of course they are not compelled to tell lies like Obama's campaign people, which they do every single day, all of which can be found online if you want to get all, "What lies?" suggesting you can find the truth or live in your fantasy world) that they have no idea who told the reporter what, and are willing to grant someone told the reporter what he claims, but they can legitimately state that it was no one from the inner levels of their campaign team and they will not stand by something one of his millions of supporters might think, if it really was one of them. I mean … doea Obama personally stand by anything you say?
Keith, n nI wrote that Alana Goodman's post was misleading, I did not make any judgement on the statement by the Romney campaign.
Misleading in what way? Take her last line: n"Unless a reporter is able to verify who said this and what his role is in the campaign, Romney’s denial should put this story to rest." n nI think that is fairly accurate and not misleading at all. Note the two conditions — first that an actual human being said it, and second that if such a person exists, the person has a role in the campaign. Any distinction between the two is essentially moot because an intrepid American reporter could probably find someone willing to state that Elvis is still alive, it would be another thing if Stephane Cutter was to say it. n nCome to think of it, there is a hilarious parody of Stephane Cutter getting drunk on UTube — it isn't her and facts do matter…. n n
Misleading in what way? Take these lines… n n"This “Anglo-Saxon heritage” story sounded unbelievable from the get-go. An unnamed Romney foreign policy adviser allegedly told the London Telegraph …" n n"Now the Romney campaign says the story is false…" n nShe is suggesting that the entire Telegraph story was fabricated. The Romney camp simply said: " “If anyone said that, they weren’t reflecting the views of Governor Romney or anyone inside the campaign.” n nGoodman's post is very misleading. The Romney campaign accepts that the quote was made, but Goodman turns their statement into a charge that the remark was some sort of fanciful invention on the part of the Telegraph. n n n n
First, the Romney campaign is NOT accepting that the quote was made — not with a line like "IF ANYONE SAID THAT, they weren't…." — that is basic English grammar and a dependent clause — it very much leaves open the possibility that no one did say it. n nLet alone the likely possibility that whoever did say it was someone whom the Romney campaign didn't know was with them. And well may not have been — remember Richard Nixon's folk and Edmund Muskee? n nBut as to the attack on Ms. Goodman, I consider it off base. n"The [story] sounded unbelievable from the get go." That is questioning believability, not alleging fabrication, and the two are not the same. There are a lot of things that a reasonable person isn't going to believe that weren't fabricated by the person telling the story — I don't think CBS News fabricated the GWB Guard Memo, it was done by someone else who gave it to them. n nMs. Goodman quotes another source that essentially implies that the Telegraph makes stuff up – and I like this line better: n nThat isn’t the view of Democrats who have been burned by the Telegraph’s stories. “They use anonymous sources to a degree that makes you wonder if they actually have them,” said Bob Shrum, the retired political consultant who managed the presidential campaigns of former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “I would have murdered someone from the Kerry campaign if they talked to the Daily Telegraph.” n nOK, maybe she is sloppy in not telling the reader if she believes that (a) the story was outright fabricated, (b) was based on a quote from someone not actually affiliated with the campaign, or (c) was that of a loose cannon in the fringes of the campaign – but this all is a moot point as she points out — absent the physical person who maybe said this, there is no story. That is not misleading.
Yeah, it was probably impolitic to say that, but of course it's quite true. "Anglo-Saxon" in the context Romney allegedly said it is a cultural reference — cultural reference — not a racial reference, and those who call it racial are the racists. Great Britain is regarded in cultural shorthand as Anglo-Saxon, though pedants would insist that Briton and Gael and Pict and Roman and Dane and Norman hyphens be added. Just like we're not permitted now to say that the United States was founded by Anglo-Saxons, informed by Anglo-French philosophy, with some help from Jews and Germans, even though it was, with minimal input from Indians, Spaniards and Africans.
Input from Indians? Hmmm…
Well, it's alleged that the charter of the Iroquois nation was a template used by the Founders. But I doubt if there was active participation by any Iroquois.
There is evidence of theoretical influence rather than actual influence. Fair enough, thanks for the clarification.
Most likely the unnamed adviser was from the left.
Same here. And I also find the constant appeals to race by Obama and his supporters, and their constant charges of racism, to be highly offensive. nAnd racist.