With my jaw hanging open much of the time online reading about what Mitt Romney and the good ship Mittanic has put out each day, I'm beginning to -- and I'd never thought I'd say this -- miss George W. Bush as the avatar of the modern Republican party.
Mittens is showing just how far they've fallen from the relatively rational good times when Dick Cheney could shoot someone in the face with a shotgun and have said victim apologize.
Here are a few ways that W. was actually better than Mittens -- and I acknowledge that W. was a miserable failure and the worst president in American history.
First, no matter how misguided, no matter how stupid, no matter how corrupt and beholden to his base of one percenters, W. was not personally a racist. He would never have said that President Obama could not understand Britain because he isn't Anglo Saxon. Bush was personally close to several Black people, including Condi Rice who was known to refer to him as her husband.
Second, although I couldn't appreciate it, I could see that to certain knuckle dragging right wingers, W. had a certain feral charm. I remember one analyst said that W. may be stupid, but he is clever. Romney has no charm, is stupid and is not clever. I don't see any redeeming personal characteristics in Mittens.
Third, despite being a spoiled rich brat like Mittens, W. at least knew that in a country where most people are not one percenters, he had to at least pretend to be a populist that you would want to have a beer with. W. cleared brush and used a chainsaw. He rode a bike and jogged (although it was widely reported that staff and celebrity jogging partners were instructed to make sure that frat boy was always in the lead.) The fact that W. could not operate a Segway, widely considered a computer controlled idiot proof means of transport without falling off, should not be held against him in this regard. I have never seen Mittens do anything manual, read any news report of him doing anything manual, and I can't imagine him doing so. Mittens makes no pretense whatsoever of being able to relate to or imitate the 99 percent. Oh, but I guess tackling, holding down, and shearing the hair off a suspected gay kid is "manual labor" of a sort, but isn't it odd that at this point, that is the only physical activity that Mittens has ever been described as carrying out? Oh wait, didn't he say he rode Austrian warmbloods?
Mittens' only saving grace is that he isn't one of the other Republican candidates he defeated. He isn't Michele "Hillary is running a Muslim Brotherhood government takeover conspiracy" Bachman. He isn't Ron "abolish the central bank of the United States and have a multi trillion dollar economy mediated by and reduced to a stack of gold metal about the size of a suburban house" Paul. He isn't Newt "savior of civilization, divorcer of wives on death beds, serial adulteror, persecutor of Clinton blowjob" Gingrich. He isn't Rick "Obama is a government nigger" Santorum.
By that standard, Mittens is the best the Republicans have to offer. But really, the Grand Old Party was much better under W.
When Mittens makes me nostalgic for Dick Cheney, stick a fork in me, I'll be done.
