Yeah. Romney is the one who strapped a dog to the roof of his car and drove hundreds of miles while the dog freaked out. He used to tell the story all the time, for laughs, as I’m sure people listened to him with an insincere smile pasted on their faces waiting for him to finish.
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.
As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
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Emotion-free crisis management sounds to me like a good trait. Unlike conscience-free non-crisis management as demonstrated in this anecdote.
It’s a horrible story, but horrible enough to vote for an authoritarian like Obama? I admit this is unsolicited advice coming from an outsider, but it seems to me that the Democrats are never going to change for the better as long as the Republicans are kept as a boogieman to keep people from voting for a third party.
The point of a “boogieman” is that it doesn’t exist. Romney, Santorum, Newt et al DO exist. There really IS a monster in the Republican closet. Kill the Republican party and I’ll look at third-party alternatives.
I guess Romney knows how to deal with Santorum after all.
But yeah, the episode clearly shows Romney torturing a living being without any compassion. That’s why nobody’s making a fuss about the story – it might help Romney with conservative voters.
Tabby – In my entire life of voting (including 6 presidential elections), I have yet to vote *for* a candidate outside of local elections. No state or federal candidate that I have been able to vote for (3 different areas in my life covering 2 different states) has demonstrated a good, comprehensive view of the issues that impact the public and few have demonstrated (key word here, not satisfied with what they say, but rather with what they actually do) anything approaching good moral behavior.
I don’t see Obama as a superior president. He certainly isn’t a liberal (myself and many others have known this for more than a couple of years now). In fact, if he was around 30 years ago, he would almost certainly be a mainstream member of the Republican party. However, I may have little choice but to vote for him as the current crop of Republican candidates are simply much worse than him.
There are many more reasons not to vote for Romney (take your pick…whether back-pedaling on his own health care plans he pushed in Mass, currently strong anti-abortion stance, happy to get us in a war with Iran, etc, etc…or just the fact that he waffles so much on many of his issues that *no one* can tell you where he really stands – not sure he does). This is just another straw.
As I see it, my choice is between the party that claims to be on my side, while doing little to protect me, and the party that flat out says, ‘No, we’re out to crush you. We plan to take away all your rights, and give your possessions to the rich.’
I hate dogs and the highlight of my year so far was that yesterday I got to repeatedly kick a dog in the face*, but there’s still no way in hell I’d vote for Romney.
*okay, it was with socks and wasn’t hard (my friends are trying to train their dog not to jump on people), but it still felt good
“Emotion-free crisis management?” Sounds more like pointless uncaring sadism to me. If he didn’t want to treat a dog decently, why did he pay good money for it in the first place?
I don’t see Obama as a superior president.
You don’t see how he’s superior to the shamelessly hateful, infantile, and downright insane bigots on the right? Then there’s no need to bother reasoning with you.
In fact, if he was around 30 years ago, he would almost certainly be a mainstream member of the Republican party.
He WAS “around” back then. Was he a Republican then?
30 years ago he and I were in the same place, living and gong to school literally dozens of meters from each other. A friend of mine was working on the Law Review with him. Obama was not a Republican.
Personally I *love* dogs. I’m owned by a Jack Russell x Fox terrier myself and I’d never treat a dog *any* dog the way Mitt Romney did there.
Yeah, that Mitt Romney dog story reflects very poorly on Mittens indeed.
However, a couple of points I think need making :
Yep I agree – it would be as nuts as considering Obama only based on his attendance at Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s sermons or by how low he bows to Saudi dictators. No politician, no human being is perfect.
I think it’s important to remember that folks are not voting for nicest bloke in the pub or top dog owner of the year, they’re voting for who can best run a nation.
Then there’s this :
Both are quotes from Neil Swidey, the journalist who broke that story from this source :
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/01/08/what_our_fascination_with_mitt_romneys_dog_seamus_says_about_our_culture/?page=2
So I think this :
was unfair and inaccurate.
I’m no big fan of Mitt Romney.
I pretty much hate all politicians.
Yet I also think – or is it more just hope – that a moderate, calm Republican President could perhaps tone down the partisanship “volume” in the States and move the USA and especially his party more towards the centre than anyone else could.
I’d rather that president was Jon Huntsman than Mitt Romney but I’d settle for Romney as the lesser evil over any of the other alternatives.
Also, frankly, it looks to me like Obama has failed. He’s been a huge let-down and if he loses, well, I won’t be that sad to see him go.
Obama hasn’t advanced science and he certainly hasn’t advanced the US space exploration program as I’d have hoped. I still hate how he cancelled the Constellation “lunar return” program glibly dismissing it witha stuipid one-liner and allowed the Space Shuttles to retire without immediate successors being readied to take over at once. Obama has left NASA’s manned spaceflight future very ncertain obliged tohitchhike onRussian craft.
Obama says he believes in HIRGO but cannot and will not actually do anything about it. Romney says he won’t act and doesn’t believe – but deep down I get the impression Mittens (& Huntsman even more so) *does* accept the science in a way the others don’t and that if circumstances permit it, Romney could perhaps act where others – even Obama – can’t or won’t.
I just wish I could see better choices than those you’ve got to choose from. To me, based on who is the lesser evil Romney & Obama seem pretty close together behind Jon Huntsman (who almost certainly won’t win) and streets ahead of any of the other realistic alternatives – Newt, Ron Paul & last the stinking Santorum.