We’ve all read in the news about Mitt Romney’s petulant little swipe at the president in The Washington Post. Apparently Mittens, still upset that a mere Queens street thug like Trump has hijacked the party from the exalted clutches of his genteel band of losers, feels it’s appropriate, in the Post no less, to trash the leader of his party just before taking a seat as the junior senator from Utah in the same party.
This move is supposed to curry favor with tout le monde of DC and help us to forget his choking nominee performance in 2012, his initial sponsorship of the Obamacare concept, and that he asked the president for a job in the early days of the administration. If the president, before and after Romney’s job request, is thought so repugnant by Mittens, then why would he want to work for him? And if Mittens is such a gentleman of shining integrity, then why would he go ballistic on a man who endorsed him when he likely requested it? Shouldn’t the president’s good turn be reciprocated by a true gentleman?
Ah, questions, questions.
To wipe away all the superficial aspects, at its foundation the issue Romney has with the president is not completely political, as Romney admits in the piece. It is cultural. He deplored the president’s tone and castigates him for lack of presidential demeanor. It’s as if Romney and his ilk, also the Bushes and the like, think that the Republican Party is an exclusive country club being crashed by a loud and abrasive bore threatening to ruin the beige fun had by the usual members. And now, dear readers, especially those of you of an age to get the joke inherent in the title of this piece, we come to the crux of it.
The relationship of the president to the Republican Party of Romney and the Bushes mirrors the plot and characters of “Caddyshack.”
No, I’m not just having an attack of nostalgia regarding my dissolute youth. Though 1980 was a year that saw me achieve such heights of University of Florida frat boy decadence that to balance out my hedonistic frivolity I decided to join the U.S. Army. That year also saw the second straight hit from the writers at the National Lampoon. The previous one being 1978’s “Animal House,” a film so redolent of my generation it still sits in the same place of honor as “Fight Club” did for future generations of immediately post-adolescents.
To illustrate the point, the president is obviously Rodney Dangerfield’s Al Czervik, loud and obnoxious fun lover and new member of…wait for it…even the name works per our thesis…Bushwood Country Club.
Romney and his pals are Ted Knight’s Judge Smails and the old guard of the club who can’t believe Czervik has somehow become a member. Chevy Chase’s Ty Webb is Rand Paul, club playboy who allies with Czervik. Lindsey Graham could understudy. The lovely first lady’s character double is Cindy Morgan’s Lacey Underall, though without the morally casual attitude.
And, best for last, the most amusing character in “Caddyshack” is Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler. In the Trumpian orbit that title belongs to newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Now while Murray’s Spackler was not accused of sexual misdeeds by lying Bolshevik harpies, they both share a fondness for brewskis, maybe for sensimilla (for sure when it comes to Carl), and apparently lived a garrulously spent early adulthood.
You can almost hear the Brettster intoning, “So, I tell them I’m a pro lawyer, and who do you think they give me? The President of the United States himself. The 12th son of the Trump line. The flowing hair, the money, tall…striking. So I’m on the first tee at Mar-a-Lago with him. I give him the driver, he hauls off and whacks one. Big hitter, the Donald…”
Given the lack of ability of certain senators to comprehend even the simplest standard thoughts, Kavanaugh should have just looked one of them square in the eye and said, “With all due respect Senator, “gunga galunga…gunga-gunga lagunga.”
What Mittens, the Bushwood crowd, Hollywood, the Dems, etc., don’t get is every time they open their yaps it just endears the president more to a majority of the American people, as it confirms his charge that the left targets him because he stands up for the people against the effete establishment. Thus Romney’s “conscience of the senate” routine is easily seen for what it really is: a sad loser’s desperate attempt at relevance at the expense of the president. He wants what The American Spectator used to term The Strange New Respect Award, given to politicians who come to Washington and go native, earning them a “strange new respect” from the DC liberal hive like The Washington Post.
Or, as the distinction is more modernly known, The Roberts Award.
Romney, evidenced by his 2012 wussery, lacks the killer instinct so necessary in successful politicians of any stripe. At one point in the second 2012 presidential debate he really had Obama on the ropes on Benghazi. And then, with that bed-wetting look of fear in his eyes, refused to go in for the coup de grace.
Perhaps his cosseted upbringing and soft nature preclude him from having what it takes to hit hard, except for self-righteously executing a falsely high-minded disloyalty. Maybe he learned that treachery at the knee of his dad, Governor of Michigan George Romney who in his day sold out GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.
Wherever he got it the trait showcases the hideous and cringeworthy need of weak politicians to be cuddled in the collective bosom, in this case by the smart set in DC. Britain’s best and fictitious Prime Minister Francis Urquhart said it best: “His deepest need was that people should like him. An admirable trait that; in a spaniel. Or a whore.”
Romney finishes his fit by saying the president sows division and should instead be bringing the country together. What Mitt and his coterie have been doing for decades is bringing the country together by surrendering to various Dem proposals that came down the pike. No resistance, no problem, all are together, eh Mittens? By that logic Caesar really brought the Roman Senate together when he was standing on their throats.
He has bought into the Dem concept that opposing them is divisive, but laying down for them is legitimate compromise. Strange idea in a democracy where lively debate and freedom to oppose is at the core of political liberty.
But all that conceptual folderol is so much silliness to Mittens, Kristol, Flake et al. They want to be adored by the right people and won’t let meaningless things like principle or even what’s best for America get in the way. If so, if they gave it a second’s thought, they could be late for the charity black tie affair at Jeff Bezo’s palace tonight.
Gunga-gunga lagunga indeed.
