I calls ’em as I sees ’em. Exhibit A —
For those Republicans who simply can’t understand why the public has failed to embrace Mitt Romney and why President Obama continues to enjoy much higher likability ratings, I offer to you exhibit A: Romney’s answer on NBC when asked about his wife’s horse competing in the Olympics.
“I have to tell you, this is Ann’s sport,” he said, preferring to not even say the word “dressage”—which is a French word meaning “training” and sometimes described as horse ballet.
“I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on,” Romney said. “She will get the chance to see it; I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well.”
So let me get this straight—your family has invested probably millions in dancing horses, supposedly as a way to help Ann treat her multiple sclerosis, “her horse” is going to compete in the globe’s most prestigious event, and we’re supposed to believe you don’t know anything about it? The subject never came up at the family dinner table or in the marital bedroom? Really, Mitt?
Romney’s Olympics gaffe made me think about when, campaigning in Pittsburgh, the candidate insulted a local bakery by disdaining its baked goods. “I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them,” Romney said to the woman next to him. “No, no. They came from the local 7/11 bakery, or whatever.” …
… Or when he visited the Daytona Raceway in Florida during a rainstorm and insulted fans wearing plastic ponchos. “I like those fancy raincoats you bought,” he said. “Really sprung for the big bucks.” Bill O’Reilly later suggested Romney’s comment sounded “elitist,” to which Romney replied he’d just wanted to wear a “garbage bag,”
… Then there’s that bizarre interlude with black voters in Jacksonville, Fla., during the 2008 campaign, where he broke out into “Who Let the Dogs Out?” and remarked on a child’s necklace with “bling, bling, baby!” (Maybe that one doesn’t count, because it’s hard to argue Romney was sincerely courting black voters.)
This kind of behavior goes beyond just being a bit socially awkward with people outside his class. I mean, who wouldn’t know to smile and thank someone for cookies? How out of touch do you have to be to be amused by plastic rain ponchos at a sports event?
Exhibit C: And then there were the Salt Lake City Olympic medals (made in China) with Mitt’s face on them. He authorized these pins be made. Just look. It’s like he thought the Olympic games were about him.
As far as I can tell, most people associated with the Salt Lake City Olympics — henceforth the Olympics in the middle of nowhere — seem to think he did a commendable job running the games. Mitt seems to think the games proved he is, in fact, Jesus.
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney considers his management of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games as the turnaround point in his career. He even wrote a 2004 memoir entitled, “Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games”.
In the book, Romney exclaims, “I led an Olympics out of the shadows of scandal” and it has been his recurrent mantra on the campaign trail for the 2012 election. Romney continuously cites his Olympic experience as a prime example of his managerial expertise and a reason he should replace Barack Obama as president. In his victory speech after the Florida primary sealing his nomination, he said, “My leadership helped save the Olympics from scandal.”
The thing is, as someone pointed out, everyone wanted the games to be successful. That might be why it was relatively easy for him to get $1.3 billion in federal dollars for the SLC games and more from the state of Utah. By contrast, in 1996, the Atlanta Summer Olympics cost U.S. taxpayers $609 million. And the summer Olympics are a much more complex affair.
What his management of the SLC games, or Bain Capital for that matter, doesn’t show us is how Mittens might deal with genuine adversity. Unlike the Olympics, in which just about everyone involved will trip all over themselves to make it work, when you are POTUS the world is full of people who want you to fail and who will stymie everything you want to do.
Which brings us back to Mitt’s reluctance to release tax returns or even provide any specifics about how he might achieve the promises he is making. It might be there really isn’t anything scandalous in those tax returns; it might be that he just doesn’t think we peasants ought to be poking our noses in his business. And it might be that he doesn’t really have any specific policy plans; he just thinks that the virtue of his awesomeness will be enough to save America. I mean, has he ever actually failed at anything, other than lose some election campaigns? One suspects he doesn’t know his own limits.
Update: Peter Ueberroth’s Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 actually made a profit. Why didn’t he run for POTUS?
Update: I also want to point out that Mittens did not say Britain is a tiny island. He said England is a tiny island. To me, this puts him in Sarah Palin “I can see Russia from my house” territory. England is not an island; it is a kingdom/principality (I’m not sure about the technical term) that is located on the island of Great Britain. Two other such governmental units located on Great Britain are Scotland and Wales. Scotland is not England. Although technically Wales was incorporated into England a few centuries ago, the Welsh do not recognize this and will tell you in no uncertain terms that Wales is not England and the Welsh are not English. And ethnic Welsh and Scots are not Anglo-Saxon; they are Celts.
I know Americans tend to use “England” and “Britain” as synonyms, but it isn’t correct, and when you are writing a book to show your understanding of world affairs it’s an unforgivable mistake, IMO.
Gah – those pins! It’s time to make one saying the mitt has hit the fan. Perhaps the Brits will do it for us.
I’m looking to bet $10,000 that he doesn’t have the courage to carry on past the convention. Or is his billion-dollar bubble more powerful than I know?
I suspect he failed at making his father proud, and now we’re all going to have to suffer for that.
He may also not want to present any policy specifics because he knows that the Republican platform of screw anybody who is not fabulously rich is not terribly popular with people who are not fabulously rich. Best to keep in the shadows for now until it is too late for anybody to do anything about it.
For the record, England is a kingdom, as is Scotland. Wales is a principality.
Also, Willard is a narcistic sociopath.
He knows at least 30% of the population would vote for him even if he said he molested chickens every day.
Even the dumbest motherfecking schlub knows not to insult the hosts when you’re going to their house?
“You ain’t gonna serve me none o’ that, vegeeetrarian sh*t, now is ya?
Oh, I forgot, you’re wife can’t cook for sh*t, so all she can make is big-ass salads. An’ haz ya got rid o’ that tacky purple couch in da livin’ room, yet. Jyazuz, what a feckin’ eyesore. And none o’ that sh*tty brew you drink – do I need to bring my own this time?”
Mitt’s not a diplomat – he’s a dipsh*tlomat.
And Jeez, how did the Republicans find someone even more out of touch than George W. Bush. Mitt is W with better table manners – and an actual horse.
Of course, Mitt trashing the countries he visits will endear him to the base – they HAAAAATES U-Rope.
But Mitt better watch his ass with Israel. Wearing a yalmuke with a propeller on it, and asking at a meeting with Israeli leaders for a BLT with melted cheese and a glass of milk will be frowned-upon, even by the morons in Sister-screw, SC.
The lunatic Christian base needs Israel and the Jewish people to be the sacrificial lambs so they can take the express elevator to Heaven, while the Jews plummet into Hell.
And Mitt had the gall to criticize President Obama for apologizing?
So far, Mitt’s done nothing but…
I’m glad you mentioned that thing about it being ‘Ann’s sport’. I heard that on the radio and my first thought was “What an ass.” He puts himself in a position where either a) he cares so little about his wife that he knows nothing about something that matters to her, and on which, by the way, he’s spent more than I make in year, OR b) he does, but he’s lying about it so as to avoid the inevitable story of him going to London to watch his wife’s horse do prissy dancing, which would make him seem unmanly or something and hurt his campaign.
Either way, he’s an ass.
Still, I have to say I did learn something this week. The Brits have a biting office comedy TV show about stupidity in government which is apparently quite popular, and which coined a word for a total disaster – “omnishambles”. The British press is is now calling Mitt’s trip “Romneyshambles”. According to Twitter, some Brits have called Romney “the American Borat.”
The best tweet I saw yesterday said that Romney had decided to retroactively cancel the London trip.
What is it with these rich sons o’ politicians? Are they bred to be mean and stupid? (Rhetorical question; the answer, of course, is YES.)
I’m having fun imagining Mittens locked in a tiny room with the comedian Billy Connolly, who might have his own way of explaining the difference between Scotland and England.
Mittens really is not a politicians, and he has no natural knack for it either. You can feel the condescension through the television. Reagan and Clinton and even Obama, you can feel the connection (faked or real), they were/are awesome at it. Papa Bush you just thought he was at least sincere. Baby Bush could not do this, though he at least tried with the homespun ‘clearing brush’, Texas kind of crap. I hear he was much better in person. Romney has the charm of Dick Cheney coupled with the condescension of someone born with several silver spoons in various orifices.
Romney has the charm of Dick Cheney coupled with the condescension of someone born with several silver spoons in various orifices.
Love it!
I still haven’t figured out if George wanted to be president (for two terms) to be better than his father or to avenge his father’s loss of a second term. In that light, is Mitt running for president in the hopes of winning to be better than his father or to avenge his father’s failure in his primary battle. (I continue to believe that Barbara Tuckman was right when she argued that, in the end, people, no matter their station in life, no matter the far-reaching effects of their decisions, act out of very petty, simple and basic human drives.)
What I have figured out is that neither was/is qualified to be president or gives a shit about what the job entails or how well he performs his responsibilities. The American people suffered the consequences under the Bush presidency and will suffer under a Romney presidency.
This may sound nuts, but I really do see Mitt Romney as a well-manicured Dubya. They both lack curiosity and empathy.
Watching Mitt fumble through London with that plastic expression has been fun! I am so hoping for more!
Let’s see. He could:
– make some dumb-ass comments about the Queen’s lack of style.
– talk smack about British teeth.
– say he prefers the Eiffel Tower to Big Ben.
– ask if Lady Di would like to have lunch.
It took the British media one day to figure out that Mitt the Twit is Unfit to be POTUS. When will the US media catch a clue?
I’m not a big one for sticking up for Romney, but in the England / isle thing, he had the same problem as William Shakespeare in Richard II:
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
…
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
He too thought England was an island.
Ol’ Bill was an Anglo-chauvinist, although even then I’m pretty sure Scotland was considered a separate kingdom under English rule. Wales by then was officially part of England, but as I said the Welsh never accepted this and still don’t.
We should have sent this fella, notice he says please and thank-you more than once.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1znPfzhVI
Unfortunatley he can’t sit in for W-Mitt, he’s actually dead not just pretending.
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/11/rip_jesse_morris_punk_rock_joh.php
I want the Obama campaign to come-up with an ad documenting Romney’s gaff’s about England and the Olympics, and at the end, have this tag, “Do you want to spend the next four years telling our allies, “Well, sometimes, MITT happens…”
And I wonder, if he meets the Queen, if he’ll ask for a title?
I bet “Lord Romney,” or “Duke Romney,” sounds pretty good to him.
And why NOT a title for Mitt Romney?
After all – isn’t he ENtitled!?!?
What’s next? Will he meet with Prince Charles and recommend a good orthodontist?
Fred Kaplan has a pretty good explanation for Mitt’s dropped balls on his not-so-excellent foreign adventure.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/07/mitt_romney_s_insults_and_mistakes_while_at_the_london_olympics_aren_t_gaffes_as_much_as_a_fair_representation_of_his_worldview_.single.html
And I can hardly wait until Mitt meets with members of the Polish military, and asks them if it’s true that when one of their Admirals wanted to by buried at sea, that 6 sailors died digging his grave?
And when he tells Bibi he’s glad Israel spared no expense to greet him, since he’s been told that usually people of the Jewish faith are known for their frugality.
For a guy named Mitt, he sure makes a lot of errors.
There was an Ueberroth for President boomlet — the Third Way is older than you might think — along with Lee Iacocca, who was popular because of his having dragged Chrysler from the brink. Ueberroth was a Republican, but ran in the CA 2003 recall election as an independent.
But none of that was as silly as the idea that Donald Trump was the missing ingredient the Democrats needed in ’88 — or the independent alternative in 2000.
There are a large number of silly people in this country — back in college I knew someone who was active in a “Draft Walter Cronkite” movement.
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