I hold former Governor Mitt Romney in minimum high regard. Minimum high regard is what one U.S. Senator says about another U.S. Senator he or she doesn't like very much. Evidently, on the Senate floor it's bad form to say "I haaaattte you" or "you're a moron."
The governor's track record at Bain Capital is his paper trail. His mendacity about his former organization's ability to create jobs and his weak attempt to deflect criticism of his own corporate avarice as "envy" demonstrated more chutzpah than a one-legged man entered at an ass kicking convention.
I can be in awe of people who work hard and are rewarded for doing well. I'm not envious of them. In fact, when someone achieves great wealth or position by creating human suffering my visceral reaction is not one of envy, but one of contempt. On the other hand, there are people of great wealth who do great things.
Romney's achilles' heel is his own hubris. A guy who says "corporations are people" and criticizes those who question his business ethics as envious, just isn't connected with how at least 95% of the population feels about income inequality.
Let's face it, Romney is a prideful guy. He also appears to be a greedy guy. His lack of empathy borders on sociopathy. He's the perfect GOP establishment candidate. Why don't members of his own party want to vote for him?
As they say in sports, "you are what your record says you are." Romney's record as a takeover artist is out there for all to see. What I see isn't very pretty. Apparently I am not alone.
Pride goeth before a fall. Be prideful Willard Romney. The fall that is coming is not the season between Summer and Winter.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
OS Readers' Picks
Erica K
vanessa seijo
MichelleD
elizabethkirby
Shiral
Salon.com
Comments
Matt -- I guess the shorter version of this post is "people don't like Romney not because of envy, but because he's a despicable dick."
We need to remember that the last person who often had hubris attached to his name was W.
While I'm fine with someone so focused that they work towards one goal for decades, his cold drive and the prospect of what he might do if he achieves what he seems to view as his life purpose does frighten me.
Joan -- ha!
aka -- Trying to make the best of a bad situation.
John -- Mitt is nervy, and venal. Nothing envious about those behaviors.
greenheron -- I was living in Maine for most of the time he was Governor, thankfully. He's a schmuck of the first water.
Lea -- When it comes to mendacity, avarice and contempt for those less fortunate, he is remarkably transparent. Everything else is opaque.
Jon -- You mean Professor Gingrich didn't get his facts straight? I'm shocked, shocked...On the Dems, they will capitalize on this. If not, it's the end of the Democratic Party. That is not hyperbole either.
Myriad -- Thanks.
Gary -- Nixon was a choirboy, compared to the mendacity of Mitt.
HUGGGGGGGGG
Great line, great post.
However, Romney has one unassailable advantage over Obama, an advantage that instantly appeals to every Republican and listener of Limbaugh, Beck and Fox News. Romney is not black. And that's a polite way to phrase it, since those people would use a different word that I refuse to use.
That simple skin difference has powered the Republicans to electoral victories in the midterm elections. Now, the insane acts of those newly-elected Republicans has dimmed their prospects for re-election, but they still have that advantage - they are not black.
And that means a lot to all those people who understand they must be subservient to men like Mitt Romney, they must work for men like him, for minimum wage all their lives, suffer without health care and die on the job. They know that Americans are nothing but feudal serfs. That belief was very common out in the dirt-poor rural areas, but it's spread to the small cities and now the big ones. And when you're a serf, you must defend your feudal lord. Who better represents a feudal lord than Romney, a man who has ended the lives of hundreds of thousands? And remember he is not black.
Romney's coming, and the question is will as many scared or hating white folks vote for him as did for the Mummy and the Dummy? Or will a few million more dive deep enough into credulity to believe a VC, Investment Banker or Private Equity Wank has the skills needed to make the world go round- Not!
"The fall that is coming is not the season between Summer and Winter. "
Lets be straight and clear about one thing- Romney ran the WINTER OLYMPICS in UTAH. While the Winter Games are awesome the job simply pales in scope with the Summer Games, a small fraction of the size- further, he did it in UTAH with, essentially, a built-in workforce, the blinded tithing locals, at his beck and call. Can you imagine Wonder Whitebread running a Summer Games in Miami? Ha!
Again, how many haters or simpletons will vote for this animatron remains to be seen- can he surpass the totals of Bible Spice and Sen. McQuack? If so, we're doomed.
R
My hope is that your message Sheppy will form the substance of the debate if it turns out that Mittens wins the nomination.
It just might be where Mitt expects 95% of us, including Snippy, to ride when he takes over the economy.
What a way to run a country! A toss of the dice would likely get you better people in positions of power.
.
I'm glad you used the term "sociopathy." Mitt appears incapable of empathy, incapable of accepting responsibility for anything he did wrong, is easily offended if criticized. However, a number of sociopaths learn how to fake basic emotions. Not Mitt.
The fall should come. I hope it will come.
But look beneath the surface and what you see is the Man in the Freudian Slip! (just posted on my blog).
Rated.
Truly. He's a schmuck among schmucks.
Yes, Mitt's so slick of speech and slick of garb, he
Reminds us all of Ken, of Ken and Barbie —
So quick to shed his moderate regalia,
He may, like Ken, be lacking genitalia.
The Republicans accept him grudgingly if at all even as he brown noses the craziest of them in his attempt to be Batshit crazy-conservative, and even this early in the primaries, saying "I love to fire people" with unemployment statistics being what they are makes him a tone deaf gaffe machine, at best.
rated
Envy? Maybe Mitt meant ennui. Naw, he doesn't know the meaning of the word -- or humility.
Envy? The man disgusts me with his sanctimony and hypocrisy. He is a walking, talking advertisement for everything wrong with capitalism. He is an exceptional American. alright -- exceptionally greedy, exceptionally spineless, exceptionally dense and exceptionally proud of an accident of birth.
"The first thing I'll do when I'm elected is get rid of Obamacare 'cause it was my idea in the first place. Mandates -- good if states do it; bad if the feds do it. Corporations are people because they can buy off politicians just like me. My five strapping sons have more important things to do than fight in wars I support. Yes, I had a pink slip -- I wore it whenever Larry Craig and I hooked up. My dad was brainwashed by the Commies; I've been brainwashed by Wall Street."
Mitt reminds me of one of my mother's favorite sayings: "You got nice hair, too bad your foolish."