Ted Nugent at the Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural ball.
(Via YouTube)
Mitt Romney thinks Ted Nugent should be more civil. Or rather, he thinks
"everyone should be civil," as if
everyone were going around making barely veiled threats against the president and spouting other incendiary eliminationist chest-thumping pronouncements. As if publicly favoring bullets if the ballots don't go the way one wants were merely a matter of impoliteness.
Among the other vileness flowing from Nugent's piehole over the weekend at the National Rifle Association conference was:
"If Barack Obama becomes the President in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
Some took that to be an assassination threat. Whether it was or not—and the Secret Service
thinks it's worth discussing with the aging rocker—why is someone so close to getting the GOP nomination not taking it seriously when such a remark emerges from someone whose endorsement Romney sought and received early last month?
Why not a full-throated denouncing? Why not use this as an opportunity to tell Americans that the eliminationist rhetoric we've been hearing so much of since Obama was elected is unacceptable and deserves to be called out for what it is? Be civil? Puhleez. This guy and others far less well known are way beyond finger-wagging.
The Romney campaign claims it did not solicit Nugent's support. Then why did Romney phone the guy just before he gave his endorsement? Nugent said he's backing Romney because the candidate personally pledged in that phone conversation not to mess with anybody's guns. Since Romney agreed, one could, using Republican logic, call Nugent an advisor to campaign.
Yet all Romney had to say about this and other sewage Nugent spewed was a brief talk-nice comment. And it didn't even come directly from Romney, but rather a spokesperson.
As for Nugent himself, apparently convinced that his rancid declarations may somehow get him a new record contract from, say, Tea Party Productions, he has chosen to stand by his remarks at the NRA confab:
“I spoke at the NRA and I will stand by my speech. It was 100 percent positive,” Nugent told the Dana Loesch radio show today. “It’s about we the people taking back our American dream from the corrupt monsters in the federal government under this administration and the communist czars he’s appointed.” [...]
“See, I’m a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally, and there are some power-abusing corrupt monsters in our federal government that despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth to identify the violations of our government, particularly Eric Holder and the president and Tim Geithner, ad nauseam,” Nugent told Loesch.
“I have never in my life threatened anyone’s life. I’m incapable of threatening anyone’s life. Because I’m about positive change, my entire speech, all my articles,” he later added.
Riiiiiiiiight. Nugent's past commentary has included tidbits such as the president should "suck on my machine gun" and Hillary Clinton is a "toxic c*nt" and, well, a whole barf bag full of "positive change" statements. No doubt, just part of his schtick, proof he's one of the boys, as if tough talk makes one tough. Such talk may not be acted on by the talker. But who might it incite?
Given Nugent's chickenhawk background (he kept himself out of Vietnam by crapping in his pants for days before he went in for his draft physical), it's no challenge to figure how he will behave when the Secret Service comes knocking Thursday. Gutless.
But Nugent is just a has-been wannabe entertainment star who even half-smart 13-year-old boys find creepy. The bigger coward in this affair is the guy who will be making an acceptance speech in Tampa a few months from now. Just how far does Nugent have to go before Mitt Romney denounces his advisor?
