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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Mitt Romney: The Real Austerity Candidate

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
28 December 11

Over the holidays, Willard Romney has been seeking once again to define himself, a job that is very similar to that undertaken by the people who renovate old country homes. The first thing you have to do is to tear down the accumulated improvements and renovations of the past 40 or 50 years, and get back down to the basic intent of the original architects. (Maybe changing the solarium into a replica of the Jungle Room at Graceland back in '62 wasn't the smartest move in the world.) So, basically, Willard is taking the sledge and the pry-bar to everything he's done politically since he bum-rushed his way into the governor's chair in Massachusetts to reveal the original moral architecture of Willard Romney, International Man of Privilege.

And, yeah, it turns out he's pretty much a smug, arrogant, and, yes, entitled rich kid who divides the world mentally into two kinds of people - himself and The Help. Lately, he's been sounding a new theme in his campaign to be our national CFO. He's railing against what he calls President Obama's attempts to turn the United States into "an entitlement society." (This charge, of course, coming as it does from a guy whose gifts as a liar are as rudimentary as his skills as a demagogue, is utterly false, but let's all be big-boy pundits and pretend for a while that truth isn't necessarily ever the point.) What is important is how easily Romney has managed to slide into the essential character of the most rabid evening-drive radio morons on your dial. Willard Romney has never known a day of peril in his life. He grew up with a silver spoon lodged so deeply in his gums that he had his baby teeth until he was 25. He did his Mormon mission in Provence, for the love of god. He moved onto a lucrative career in predatory capital. If, as was said, George W. Bush was born on third base and thought he hit a triple, then Willard Romney was born in the dugout with four runs in, nobody out, and the bases loaded.  READ MORE

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