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From the Forest to the Shore, Connecticut, USA
March 12
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JANUARY 14, 2012 8:52AM

The Bain of Mitt's Existence

Rate: 32 Flag


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.


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OEsheepdog, a thoughtful perspective with a great dose of humor included! He's a poster boy for the Republican party in so many ways that it is strange to hear of the pow wow taking this place by conservatives to pick a candidate to be their choice and we know ahead of time they're not thinking about the Mittster!
I wonder if the GOP pols are savvy enuf to know they need someone less transparently unlikable. Someone who's better at dishing out bullshit and persuading people to believe it.
John -- glad you liked the humor. I thought the headline was one of my best.

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."
"Minimum high regard." Love it and will add it to my vocabulary of equivocation. If it ever turns up as a comment on one of my posts, I will know it is not a compliment. I couldn't agree more about Mitt. R
"Minimum high regard." Well, I'll be adding that to my repertoire. ~r
Your turn of phrase has a better ring to it I suppose as politics are built around euphemisms. I hold him in the maximum lowest regard.
Well done, Old S D. I particularly enjoyed this: "one-legged man entered at an ass kicking convention."

We need to remember that the last person who often had hubris attached to his name was W.
Sheepie, you were there when he governed Massachusetts. One thing we all knew as citizens was that he was using us, that he cared not one whit for us, that we were an entry on his resume. "Saved the Olympics" would not be enough to get him to where he has always wanted to be.

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.
He's the political embodiment of Gordon Gekko. And that notion ain't real popular right now except for one-percenters.
Now that Mr. Gingrich acknowledges that the film has many flaws/untruths and wants it corrected or pulled, I doubt the Dems can use it as effectively as we might like. r.
extra (alas, invisible) rating for the title
Great headline and fine commentary....Although I would be delighted to see more people come forward who were victims of Romney's practices, I know there are strong arguments on Bain's activities pro and con. The main thing is Romney,s ability to dance questions....I know many of us remember Nixon, and how skilled he was at evading difficult questions....
Gerald -- Mitt is so mendacious, how can you believe anything he says?

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.
Loved this commentary. It's going to be a fun ten months.
The leader of the Keystone cops. Oh woe are we.

Great line, great post.
I have no love for Romney either, but I wouldn't be so certain that he will get a comeuppance. He will probably be the Republican nominee - albeit a wounded one, since apparently Newt Gingrich has decided to spend all his money destroying him - an amazing, immature political act.

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.
Candidate Romney only has two problems, Everything he has ever said and Everything he has ever done. He's too "liberal and Mormon'' for the conservatives from the Reaganites to the Tea Party. And he is the poster child for the 1%ers thus ticking off everyone else. It is almost as if he has become the "Well if we have to" candidate for the GOP.
Thanks, neutron, for the facts. Truth told.

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.

The site of the others in the republican clown car criticizing him for the "profit at any cost" way of life . . .just before their "oh no. . .wait. . . that's what we're all for!" moments could be funny. . .if not for the danger of Mittens actually winning.

My hope is that your message Sheppy will form the substance of the debate if it turns out that Mittens wins the nomination.
OEsheepdog, would I be correct in assuming that you wouldn't want to go for a ride on the top of Mitt's station wagon?

It just might be where Mitt expects 95% of us, including Snippy, to ride when he takes over the economy.
he's as plastic as they come.
That anyone who gets elected might actually be able to do the job they're elected to do is pure happenstance. What they're good at is getting elected; nothing more. Since getting elected depends upon who wins the advertising campaign rather than on any qualities or abilities the candidates have for doing the job, it is not surprising that few can.

What a way to run a country! A toss of the dice would likely get you better people in positions of power.
"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." -- Balzac (or a paraphrase of what he actually wrote)

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.
Very well reasoned perspective.

The fall should come. I hope it will come.
I'm totally with you on the hubris thing. And if ever there were a guy living MORE in a bubble than George W. Bush, it's Mitt Romney -- so cocooned in white privilige, male privilege and straight privilige he doesn't even understand the one word that defines his life: privilege.

But look beneath the surface and what you see is the Man in the Freudian Slip! (just posted on my blog).

We'll all be on tenterhooks to find out if hatred of Obama or non-Christians runs strongest in that party. Both the attacks on Romney and the shushing it up are hilarious to see.
He's The Romney Unit - stick a nickel into him and watch him gyrate around until he faces the right direction.
Oh, Sheepdog, why don't you tell us what you REALLY think! I hope this gets picked up by the big boys and quoted on Jon Stewart. You're quite the writer.

Truly. He's a schmuck among schmucks.
I never heard that about Nixon. He was good at evading question? So much so that it was considered a skill?
I don't know what's wrong with members of his party. Maybe this year they don't like perverts, cheaters, sociopaths and rapacious predators as much as they did last year. It's hard to tell what loonies will want day to day.
Your great Title matches your great essay! In his mind he had to do whatever he needed to do to get rich - who knows, maybe he figures if he gets in - he just might throw us some crumbs! R
And.... Mitt's the best they can do? I think Calvin Trillin said it perfectly:

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.

Envy? As I've said before, vulture capitalists and banksters have gone from role models to targets.

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."
One more: Mitt reminds us Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, apparently without the slightest clue that Greed is another.
Great piece. I agree with all you say except I can't count him out. Marketing, branding, positioning, deal making, skin color, celebrity looks and of course Money make him a formidable potential candidate. Every early primary reflects each state's hot buttons but nationwide electoral math can net out very different. We'll see, eh.
I hope Mitt falleth hard and fast.