With Mitt about to embark on an international gaffe-a-thon for the next six days, it's only fitting that he consider the advice of those who've gone before, and whose perspective could spare him many unnecessarily stressful moments.
To this end, we've assembled some advice from Those Who Know Whereof They Speak, recognizing that Mitt will likely ignore their advice, just as he's ignored the advice of his wife, his sons, his campaign managers, his business associates, his teachers, his mentors, and pretty much everyone he's come into contact with over the years.
Admittedly, Mitt won't be traveling in steerage, so we've left out any advice related to mingling with the Great Unwashed Masses. Likewise, he won't have to deal with airline food, water-borne disease, substandard accommodations, or any of the other travails that the rest of us face in budget-constrained travel.
With all of his wealth, Mitt can only compress the time frame of trans-Atlantic flight by so much, so he'll need to have something to occupy his time. Oscar Wilde suggests the following:
"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
Mitt's own diary would make for pretty bland reading; fine if you're battling insomnia, but otherwise, it's best to spring for the Cliff's Notes version. He's really not a memoir kind of guy. That should surprise nobody, since he can't seem to remember much, and somehow, it all keeps changing. It's sort of a "work in progress", without the progress.
Then again, while he's jet-setting around, he can avail himself of this useful insight from Rudolf Erich Raspe:
"A traveler has the right to relate and embellish his adventures as he pleases, and it is very impolite to refuse that deference and applause they deserve."
Come to think of it, this advice seems tailor made for other Etch-a-Sketch moments back home. Mitt liked this a lot, and ordered one of his minions to bookmark it!
Speaking of being unable to separate reality from fiction from reinvention, Mitt should pay heed to the words of Samuel Johnson:
"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."
There are those who accuse Mitt of living in his own world. After all, as Ann has so graciously pointed out, they "have their own places" to vacation where all the sheets and towels are nice and clean and starched and creased the way Mitt likes them. There's also no risk of having to dine with strangers or other riff-raff. If he would consider traveling beyond his car-elevator-equipped mansions, Mitt might find out that, as
Eudora Welty noted:
"Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming part of it."
Somewhere along the line, the issue of money is bound to come up with Mitt, and this cogent observation by
Letitia Baldridge would no doubt warm whatever passes for his heart:
"There is no substitute for the riches gained on a lifetime basis by the young American who studies or works abroad."
Mitt laughed at this one, and ran a quick mental calculation of the cumulative additional earnings he was able to rack up as a result of his having bypassed that whole Vietnam war debacle and embark that much earlier on his life's "mission".
Then there's the pesky issue of international monetary exchange. While this is less of a nuisance now in the Eurozone, it still plagues most travelers, as described by Erma Bombeck:
"There are few certainties when you travel. One of them is that the moment you arrive in a foreign country, the American dollar will fall like a stone."
What? Erma didn't know about hedging foreign currency? Mitt was incredulous. With international accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans and some of the best currency traders working on his behalf, this sort of rookie mistake will never happen chez Romney. Quite the contrary! Travel's a great opportunity to visit his money, and move some more of it around to more, um... advantageous locations around the world.
One of the delights of travel is the possibility of immersion in a foreign culture. As James Michener warns, however:
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.
Mitt found this one hilarious. Now you see why we have "our own places" for vacation. It's true! We might as well stay home. Yeah, no kidding! But, hey, seriously: I'm running for president, for Pete's sake! Gotta keep up appearances. Listen: I hear Ann calling; better not keep her waiting. That's MY travel advice.