Obama and Romney: Twins Separated at Birth?

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Fred Hiatt’s column in the Washington Post today charts out some startling similarities between leftie pinup model Barack Obama and the right’s black sheep, Mitt Romney. More disturbingly perhaps, both candidates articulate foreign policy agendas that are not so different from Bush’s, which has, hello!, proven to be about as unsuccessful as a foreign policy could be.

Obama talks a big line about withdrawal from Iraq, but his policy paper paints a different picture, calling for leaving enough troops there “to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.” Even the troops we have there now aren’t up to these tasks. (Romney, like the rest of the Republicans, is stumbling all over himself to say neither “bring them home” nor “stay the course.”)

Both Romney and Obama want to expand the armed forces and to continue in the “We rule the world” vein that has earned the United States intense foreign animosity since 2000. “We are a unique nation, and there is no substitute for our leadership,” says Romney. Right on, says Obama: “We can be this America again. . . . [A]n America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.'”

Both are jumping on the terrorism bandwagon. Calling it the biggest threat to the United States might be true, at least in the post-Iraq world, but should candidates be promising another Cold War? (I was pretty young at the time, but I don’t remember fears of nuclear war being much fun.) Romney says “the jihadist threat is the defining challenge of our generation,” comparing it to Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, and he promises a powerful response. Obama agrees: “To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.”

Despite my personal disgust for Romney based on his frantic attempts to out anti-gay the Christian right, it may be better to share common ground with him than with, say, Rudy Giuliani. But similarities with the Bush agenda are a serious red flag in my book. Obama-ites: Care to defend your candidate in the comments section?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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