The post-Republican primary Romney campaign against President Obama has been full of weakness and weirdness on the Governor's part, but something he does gives me extra pause. It's a disturbing pattern of behavior that manifests itself in a lot of different ways but always ends with him in the same difficult political places.
Mitt Romney literally sabotages himself, he does it with an alarming frequency, and he seemingly does it in dangerous and disturbing ways for dangerous and disturbing reasons.
At this point, Romney's face has rake handle prints on it and his shoes are all brown due to shit. This has told him to double down and call some on his own side trying to help him 'bedwetters'. This is about a man, and his creepy mixture of gross dishonesty, entitlement, stupidity, and credibility coming via your station in life being more dangerous than any recent GOP nominee.
1. We all know that Romney lies. We all know it, because he has a long history of bullshitting. The theory about it was that Romney was lying in a Rove/Atwater way. Telling big lies and telling them often to obfuscate parsing them. But, specifically, Mitt Romney even lies about things he really doesn't have to lie about. Worse, He even lies about things he should never, ever lie about. Ever. He lies in a way that hamstrings his own ability to be effective. This is a little more than dishonesty as a Rove/Atwater tactic. His entire counter-attack on Barack Obama, including the wildly reckless and very risky move to call a sitting US President a liar on a specific issue where the sitting President was sure to have done airtight research before making his Bain attack, was based entirely on the idea that he left Bain in 1999. That he left Bain at that point, and had nothing to do with the company since the date he cited as a walk-away date. If you pre-suppose Romney is a smart man in total control this makes no sense at all. Clearly, he knew it was a lie, he knew that lie wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, so, he knew that he'd built a mud castle on wet sand when he did it and... he brushed all of that aside and just did it anyway? (Maybe assuming that the Village malpractice would rise to the level of letting him get away with it.) Or. He is lying because that is what he does. It's a natural instict that has nothing to do with tactical thinking or cynicism. He lies when he needs to provide a fast answer off-the-cuff and somebody else has to clean up th mess later, if at all. His natural instinct is to make some shit up and throw it out there. Mitt Romney lies like a little kid, not a cynical pol.
Think about what that says about him. He lies to the point where there is no other explanation other than lying is fundamentally hardwired into him as a human being, because there is no tactical or strategic argument that passes the laugh test right now. The fact that the Village media is vapid and stupid is a reason to lie in a way that gives you plausible deniability, in a Rove/Atwater way, not like a four year old to his mother who can see its face is covered in chocolate cake when it lies about not having any.
In what universe do you lie about when you left a firm like Bain if you are running for President, and then base whole swaths of your campaign's credibility on that date you have cited? The paper trail is significant. The people who know you have lied because they were there is staggering. The number of people who will be looking gobsmacking. As a voter, as a US citizen, can you trust that a President Mitt Romney will not boldfaced lie, and do so repeatedly, on the international stage in a way that will not harm this nation? Nobody who lies as much as Mitt Romney does can turn it off once a campaign is over. It's a part of who he is. It's so much a part of who he is that he will lie to the point where it cripples his ability to get out of his own way, but also, Mitt Romney has no hesitation to lie about whatever he feels like lying about to justify what he is has done in the past, what he is doing now, and about what he will do in the future. President Mitt Romney would be the worst aspects of Richard Nixon married to the worst aspects of George W. Bush.
2. Romney seems to think that his calling for a correction or retraction alone, with no refutation of the facts in question, should be enough to merit him being issued a correction or retraction. "I say you were wrong, you admit it, and take whatever it is back." "Why? Well, um, because 'shut up' that's why. Seriously. Do it." That's Sarah Palinesque on its face, but, he does this all the time. To the point where it rises to the level of being another form or variety of self-sabotage that seems to be fundamentally hard-wired into him as a man. If you put a story out that he feels is doing him harm, he calls for it to be retracted or demands corrections or demands apologies. Because.... well, just because. He does this when he is comes under perfectly reasonable and carefully backed-up criticism he doesn't like from others. You can't govern that way. You aren't a king if you get elected President. Demanding apologies or corrective behavior from others, and for perfectly legitimately outlining your fuck-ups and dishonesty accurately no less, is something scary when you put that person in a position of ultimate power. Wiretapping? Domestic Drone use? Expanding the Homeland Security Department's mission? Border Patrol's mandate? It's terrifying. He's been doing this since the day he first ran for President back in the 2008 GOP primary race. A few times makes him a thin-skinned or clueless pol. Constantly doing it makes me seriously question his fitness to passively plant-sit a greenhouse full of cacti for a week.
Think about what that says about him. He's like a man who thinks he's running for fucking king or emperor not President. His imperious nature rises up to the point where there is no other explanation other than being seen as above reproach is fundamentally hardwired into him as a human being. Like his serial lying. If something is wrong, it's somebody else's fault and they better apologise and make it right. I don't want that guy to have the US Navy at his beck and call, do you?
Specifically in regards to Bain; Earth to Mitt Romney: If you dispute the veracity of a story you have to specifically point out, detail by detail, where the Wapo, or the Boston Globe, or the NYTimes got the story wrong and then cite the relevant information that backs you up and refutes the Globes reporting, and then things change. Otherwise, you don't get what you want because there is nothing to correct and/or retract. You have no legs to stand on. "I don't like what you said" is not grounds for the Globe walking their story back. To do this as often as Mitt Romney does it is deeply and profoundly disturbing. Who is to say that Mitt Romney will not do this, a lot, in any disputes with other nations should he be President?
3. How Romney is handling (or grossly mishandling) the challenge of answering the Bain questions on the campaign trail are a warning. They show him to be a man who is very easily taken aback, knocked off his game, quickly put hamfistedly on the defensive, and then whose fumbling immediately makes things much worse. It also tells us that when things get really hard, or tough, Mitt Romney will take the worst aspects of his personality and leadership style and weld them all together in a toxic soup of fail. As the Bain questions have gotten tougher, Romney has gotten worse in direct proportion. More lies. More imperious demands for corrections and retractions. More calls for apologies and kissing his ass. This results in what passes as his best attempt at adopting a crisis mode front to deal with a serious problem. That's some scary shit if you are talking about a President. Add that to his serial lying and his egomania about how he is never wrong only wronged and nobody should feel safe with the idea of him being in the White House. Obviously, the unvarnished and unspun corporate history that is being cited, and the damning political narrative being crafted around it, by President Obama is obviously hitting home. It clearly has the Romney campaign freaked out and running scared on the defensive and flailing to come up with an answer that will turn everything around. Sit back and imagine the last month as an international crisis point. A terrifying or trying (or both) moment for our country that a US President is facing down as commander and chief and our national leader in the White House.
Think about what this says about Romney. He cannot handle the pressure of being in a moment of crisis. Not remotely well. Worse, his natural insticts are to reject calls to change course and to double down on what is already making things worse. He would make George W. Bush look flexible and willing to compromise. He would make Dick Cheney look like a diplomat when things got hot. If the idea is to end Bain as an issue, to defang it as a liability, Mitt Romney is doing as much as anyone to keep the story alive as Barack Obama is. The guy is a fraud. Yes. But he's a way-too-easily spooked fraud and he's making everything worse in his best attempt at staking out a crisis footing. Marry the lying, with the imperial sense of self, with the panic and you have a recipe for disaster that is even worse than the worst ideas of Mitt Romney being George W. Bush II should he get into the office of the Presidency.
In the Stupid vs. Evil debate, Romney is a 'yes'.
Mitt Romney is almost entirely a living breathing myth. He's not smart, he's not even smarter than George W. Bush, or even Dan Quayle, was. He's not a good businessman, he's just another guy who contributed to why Wall Street is a simmering toxic mess. He's not a saavy leader, he does what he's told and makes it look like whatever he was doing was his idea. He's not bold, he's fundamentally one of the biggest cowards in the GOP. He's not an idea driven individual, he's an empty suit who has learned from Newt Gingrich to be 'what a stupid person thinks a smart guy sounds like'.
Now we find out that he's a serial (rather than a cynical/tactical) liar, a sadly fragile egomaniac, and that on top of everything else... he's all not good at all under pressure.
God help us all if he's ever President.