Harvard Educated Romney Disses Harvard Educated Obama (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | I watched former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Florida victory speech Tuesday night. He's looking stronger since the South Carolina debates in an attempt to defeat Newt Gingrich and show that he's no "shrinking violet."

But his character attack against President Barack Obama ruined any respect I had for his speech, to say the least. On the president, Romney said, as reported at PBS, "Like his colleagues in the faculty lounge who think they know better, President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy. I will make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs, for innovators and for job creators. And unlike the other people running for President, I know how to do that."

Well, that remains to be seen, Gov. Romney. However, I have a question: Why would a man who benefited from an elite education diss the elite education of another man?

Obama earned a JD from Harvard University. Romney earned a JD and an MBA from Harvard.

Character attacks pack a punch when they make sense. This one doesn't.

Is Gov. Romney implying he's not an intellectual and that because he's a businessman, he can relate better to the average Joe and Jill?

First, Romney is a multimillionaire. I don't have a problem with that. I'm proud of anyone who can build a reputable and profitable life for oneself. But Romney is a member of that famous "1 percent." How is that relatable to middle- and low-income Americans?

As Kathleen Parker wrote at The Washington Post, "It isn't that Romney can't connect with people, as has been pronounced repeatedly. It is that people can't connect with him. This also helps explain why the far less perfect Newt Gingrich can attract support against all reason, or at least against all reasonable expectations."

Second, how is attacking American education and American institutions the right move? What message does this send to young people? If you're uneducated, it's okay. Don't worry about it?

Writes Rick Shenkman, author of "Just How Stupid Are We?" writes, "It would appear that young people today are doing very little reading of any kind. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts, consulting a vast array of surveys, including the United States Census, found that just 43 percent of young people ages 18 to 24 read literature. In 1982, the number was 60 percent. A majority do not read either newspapers, fiction, poetry, or drama. Save for the possibility that they are reading the Bible or works of non-fiction, for which solid statistics are unavailable, it would appear that this generation is less well read than any other since statistics began to be kept."

Gov. Romney will attack the president on a variety of issues as part of his campaign, but attacking his education shouldn't be one of them.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120201/pl_ac/10916433_harvard_educated_romney_disses_harvard_educated_obama

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