Mitt Romney at Senator Bob Bennett’s Side During GOP Conference – Mitt will be tied to the Senators Hip

According to Mormon Church owned Deseret News, Mitt Romney will be Senators Bob Bennett’s big weapon during the GOP convention. Jim Bennett, the senator’s son said Romney is to be standing by Bennett’s side through-out the convention, in an attempt to strengthen Bennett’s lagging support in Utah. The senator has been under attack by ultra-conservative Club for Growth, in the Beehive State. A blog piece regarding Romney and Senator Bob Bennett’s son Jim’s controversial statements at a Utah meeting, were run as an attack ad by Club for Growth. More can be read on the controversy on a March blog piece titled:

“Could Trouble Be Brewing For Romney In Utah?” can be linked to by clicking on the March blog list located on the side bar of this blog.

Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:57 p.m. The Deseret News reported the Club for Growth has complained that Utah Senator Bob Bennett’s son has told people to be ‘deceptive’. Bennett is a family friend and a long time backer of Mitt Romney’s. Mitt Romney at the same meeting told people to vote more than once. Club Growth seized on the statements by the two good friends, Mitt and Bob Jr. on their website complaining of the two encouraging deceptive tactics.



Another good friend of Senator Bennett’s son’s is Karl Rove. Rove along with Romney are out on the campaign trail for Bennett. Yes, Bennett’s son is friends of both Mitt Romney and Karl Rove. This is not the first time Rove has made appearances in Utah for Bennett, All Business in 2009 reporter on Rove, when Karl was in Utah for his 40th High School reunion took time during his visit to campaign for the Senator. All Business, felt Rove’s appearance on behalf of Bennett odd writing: “Perhaps this odd partnering will prove a plus for Bennett among next year’s delegates to the state Republican convention (Imagine! Karl Rove!).”

Is Rove an “odd partnering” with Senator Bob Bennett? Not at all, Bennett groomed Karl Rove. Senator Bennett and Rove have a long history together. Wikipedia sheds light on Bennett/Rove ties.

“In December 1969, the man Rove had known as his father left the family, and divorced Rove's mother soon afterward; it later became known he was homosexual.[8][9] After his parents' divorce, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father; both he and his older brother Eric were the children of another man. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been.[10] In 1981 Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada.[10]”

“In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University of Utah, on a $1,000 scholarship,[11] as a political science major and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. As with many others of his generation, enrollment in college protected him from being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Through the University's Hinckley Institute of Politics, he got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped him land a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois. Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III won.”

“In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973.”

Roves antics didn’t end with the fake campaign fliers in 1970, Rove is later linked to:

“Sources quoted by Time magazine and CBS' "60 Minutes" maintained that Rove used his influence with a U.S. attorney to get a bribery conviction against former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.”

Rove has also been implicated in several U.S. attorney generals firing, the leaking of CIA agent Valarie Plame’s identity, and involvement in Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.


Outside of both Romney and Rove campaigning for Bennett, the two also share other similarities according to journalist Mark Halperin --

“Over the years, I have covered and interviewed both men and admittedly have found them rather difficult to decode, personally and sometimes professionally.”
Rove and Romney connections and similarities do not end with Bob Bennett, or being difficult to ‘decode’.

Beth Myers, a Rove protégée, was Mitt Romney’s campaign manager in Romney’s 2008 presidential run and Rove became a strong voice in promoting an M&M ticket (McCain/ Mitt) after Romney bowed out of the GOP presidential race after Super Tuesday.

HANNITY: We continue with our friend, FOX News contributor Karl Rove. All right Karl Rove, I never, ever doubt my good friend Bob Novak, and he's saying that you're suggesting that Mitt Romney would be a good VP choice for John McCain.

ROVE: Well, I talked with Bob recently, and we got to talking about the vice-presidential choice, and I shared with Bob, I've been traveling around the country recently — in fact, tonight I'm at the University of Pittsburgh where I'm a guest of the Pitt Program Council. And as I go around the country, I'm hearing a lot of conversation about VP, and I told Bob I was surprised by how often I was hearing the name Mitt Romney, and there seems to be some level of enthusiasm for the M & M ticket, "McCain & Mitt."

HANNITY: All right, but is that Karl Rove's choice?

ROVE: I'm going to try to remain to be a little objective and detached. I'm just reporting to Bob what I heard. And I was in Florida, southwestern Florida on Friday night. I heard it there. I mentioned it tonight; I met with the Pitt College Republicans before the speech I'm going to make later on tonight. I met with the Pitt College Republicans earlier this evening. They asked me the question of what I was hearing about it. I shared with them the M & M ticket, and there was a lot of enthusiasm there for it.

Robert Novak wrote:

“Former White House political guru Karl Rove is urging that Sen. John McCain pick Mitt Romney as his running mate, writes veteran Washington columnist Robert Novak.”
“According to Novak, Rove and other GOP bigwigs want Romney in the No. 2 spot despite the bad blood that exists between the former Massachusetts governor and McCain, an enmity that grew out of their heated rivalry during the Republican presidential primaries.”

Sen. Bob Bennett of course, was a big backer of Mitt Romney during Romney’s 2008 Presidential run.

Bob Bennett for Mitt Romney


And Romney of course is backing Bob Bennett in his re-election efforts –

Mitt Romney for Bob Bennett



Don’t You feel a bit hypocritical Romney?


Karl Rove stomping for both –

Roves appearance on the campaign trial for Bennett lead one journalist to write:

“With Karl Rove stumping this weekend for Sen. Bob Bennett's re-election campaign, should Bennett's Republican opponents -- Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Cherilyn Eagar and, possibly, Tim Bridgewater -- worry about going to jail anytime soon?”
“It's a tongue-in-cheek question, I admit. Rove's “

“But the fact that the opponents of Rove's clients tend to get indicted, and convicted, on what many critics have called dubious charges and questionable evidence, brings into question what Bennett hopes to accomplish in terms of his sketchy image with the party's right wing.”

“He is accused in the book Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove… with having used his friendship with an FBI agent to get corruption indictments against two state bureaucrats”

“It's a tongue-in-cheek question, I admit."

References found in comment section:

Romney the Torture Supporter- Mitchell and Jessen show up in Thailand

I wonder if Romney will re-think his support for enhanced torture?

I was to be off today, but the breaking story of newly released CIA documents regarding the destruction of the CIA tapes in Thailand and Harriet Miers quoted as being “livid”, deserved a departure from my hiatus ---

“Former CIA Director Porter Goss agreed with a 2005 decision to destroy interrogation videos showing waterboarding, but nobody told White House counsel Harriet Miers, who was "livid" to find out afterward, newly released CIA documents show.”

“The tapes were destroyed in Thailand.”

It just so happens, Mitchell and Jessen was in Thailand. And they have a history of destroying tapes of abuses done in America in the prison systems they ran.

“(Mitchell) he and Bruce Jessen offered to run for the CIA as private contractors, to be paid "more than $1,000 a day" plus expenses, tax free. In April 2002, when an al Qaeda prisoner being held at a CIA safe house in Thailand began talking to FBI interrogators, contributing "actionable intelligence" about al Qaeda personnel and activities, the CIA took Mitchell up on his offer and invited him to try his methods on the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah. Mitchell showed up in Thailand, announced to FBI interrogators that he was taking over, with the blessing of top officials in Washington, and ordered that Zubaydah be confined "like a dog"

See blog piece below of April 12, titled: "Romney Is For Enhanced Interrogations Techniques" for more background on Mitchell and Jessen.

“Washington torture memos aimed specifically at protecting Mitchell"

“His work with Zubaydah and apparently also with a second prisoner preceded official legal clearances for torture. Paperwork associated with the legal maneuvering suggests that some of the lawyers and other top-level officials were familiar with Mitchell's program and wished to establish it on secure legal footing. The firm Mitchell Jessen and Associates still operates out of Spokane, Washington, It advertises its expertise in "understanding, predicting and improving performance in high-risk and extreme situations."

"According to CIA officials, "Mr. Rodriguez did not consult him or the C.I.A.'s top lawyer [or Goss] before giving the order for the tapes to be destroyed." --- Mr. Rodriguez, worked with Cofer Black who brought Mitchell and Jessen into the CIA. Cofer Black who later wound up on Mitt Romney's presidential committee in his 2008 run.

And who did the torture memos’? Many of Mitchell and Jessen fellow LDS church members. Like Harry Reid said of Judge Bybee.. "Judge Bybee has a good professional reputation in Nevada". Wonder if these guys all meet in the Mormon Temple for special ceremonies?

Mormons sure do protect each other against cases of child sexual assault in the Mormon church -- women and children get mobbed and battered, guess it carries over in their jobs in the secular world.


Reference on comments page.