Integrity is as simple as saying what you mean and meaning
what you say. It’s what you’re
known by and what you’re trusted for, if you are trusted; or what you are
rightfully distrusted for, if you lack it.
In my book, a man who changes what he says he believes in
order to please or conform with those he’s speaking to is a man who lacks
integrity. I cannot trust what he
tells me when I know that he will say something different when addressing
someone else. By the same token, a
man who fails to disavow public statements made on his behalf that conflict
with his own professed beliefs is a man who lacks integrity. He does not earn my trust.
It has come down to this. We should have known it all along. In fact, we did know it. From the start of his campaign, Mitt Romney has manifested a
stunning absence of integrity. If
he has core beliefs, as he would have us believe, he has shown himself ready to
cast them to the winds at the least contingency. It is what he is known for. The “etch-a-sketch” reputation is not unearned. Watching the early Republican debates
provided us with ample evidence of this propensity.
I do no assail a man’s integrity easily. It’s an uncomfortable thing for me to
do, because a man’s integrity is his most valuable—and vulnerable—asset. I would like to honor a man’s
commitment to his religious beliefs, his uprightness, his constancy. But in Mitt Romney’s case, all this
rings hollow, it seems a sham when he fails to step forward and condemn the
kind of outrageous bigotry and ignorance we have seen from his supporters and
surrogates in recent days: to wit, Gov. John Sununu’s overtly racist slander of
Gen. Colin Powell—a man, by the way, whose considerable integrity was
mercilessly exploited by the former Republican president—following his
endorsement of President Obama; and the unconscionable comments about rape from
several prominent Republicans…
Even should he step forward now with forceful condemnation,
we could not believe him. We could
believe it only another matter of political contingency. It does not speak well for a man who
would be president, that he sacrifices his integrity with a smile on his face,
a joke, and a dismissive wave of the hand. No last-minute pretense of compassion for the poor, of
respect for women’s rights, of concern for the middle class, of peaceful global
intentions rings true, when it comes from a man who makes no bones about
publicly shredding his personal integrity in this way.
1 comment:
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts of all places. And here's the rout, for it is the state that Miff Romnesia was Governor.
A table of the states ranked by "net tax-supported debt per capita" shows Massachusetts in the number-one spot, at $4,153 of tax debt per person. The Miff Grifter has a plan to lower our debt that he will share with us after he is elected.
His promises are hollow and empty. He is, however consistent in that he does continue to change. The shape shifter promises change and this is honestly the one quality I depend on from Miff. He mirrored Obamas policies during the last debate. That was change in action. His party adopted the phrase "Change" from the democrats who have forged, with Obamas direction and in spite of a severe obstructionist party across the aisle, a way out of the mess that Dub Ya left.
The opposing party wants to return to the policies that got us there. Voting for Romnesia will provide change all right and it will be called Wrongnesia.
Post a Comment