Josh Haner/The New York Times
David Brooks
The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee:
Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.
Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal.
Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, “Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired.
The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. Mitt spent many happy hours up there, applying face lotion to combat windburn.
The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school, where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately rich.
Some people say he retreated into himself during these years. He had a pet rock, which ran away from home because it was starved of affection. He bought a mood ring, but it remained permanently transparent. His ability to turn wine into water detracted from his popularity at parties.
There was, frankly, a period of wandering. After hearing Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” Romney decided to leave Mormonism and become Amish. He left the Amish faith because of its ban on hair product, and bounced around before settling back in college. There, he majored in music, rendering Mozart’s entire oeuvre in PowerPoint.
His love affair with Ann Davies, the most impressive part of his life, restored his equilibrium. Always respectful, Mitt and Ann decided to elope with their parents. They went on a trip to Israel, where they tried and failed to introduce the concept of reticence. Romney also went on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his 2008 presidential bid.
After his mission, he attended Harvard, studying business, law, classics and philosophy, though intellectually his first love was always tax avoidance. After Harvard, he took his jawline to Bain Consulting, a firm with very smart people with excessive personal hygiene. While at Bain, he helped rescue many outstanding companies, like Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, Atari and DeLorean.
Romney was extremely detail oriented in his business life. He once canceled a corporate retreat at which Abba had been hired to play, saying he found the band’s music “too angry.”
Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his wife’s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five perfect sons — Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip — who married identically tanned wives. Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the stairs.
After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after the G.O.P. He then decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. His campaign slogan, “Vote Romney: More Impressive Than You’ll Ever Be,” was not a hit, but Romney won the race anyway on an environmental platform, promising to make the state safe for steeplechase.
After his governorship, Romney suffered through a midlife crisis, during which he became a social conservative. This prepared the way for his presidential run. He barely won the 2012 Republican primaries after a grueling nine-month campaign, running unopposed. At the convention, where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man, effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker. If elected, he promises to bring all Americans together and make them feel inferior.
Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.
Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal.
Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, “Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired.
The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. Mitt spent many happy hours up there, applying face lotion to combat windburn.
The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school, where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately rich.
Some people say he retreated into himself during these years. He had a pet rock, which ran away from home because it was starved of affection. He bought a mood ring, but it remained permanently transparent. His ability to turn wine into water detracted from his popularity at parties.
There was, frankly, a period of wandering. After hearing Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” Romney decided to leave Mormonism and become Amish. He left the Amish faith because of its ban on hair product, and bounced around before settling back in college. There, he majored in music, rendering Mozart’s entire oeuvre in PowerPoint.
His love affair with Ann Davies, the most impressive part of his life, restored his equilibrium. Always respectful, Mitt and Ann decided to elope with their parents. They went on a trip to Israel, where they tried and failed to introduce the concept of reticence. Romney also went on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his 2008 presidential bid.
After his mission, he attended Harvard, studying business, law, classics and philosophy, though intellectually his first love was always tax avoidance. After Harvard, he took his jawline to Bain Consulting, a firm with very smart people with excessive personal hygiene. While at Bain, he helped rescue many outstanding companies, like Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, Atari and DeLorean.
Romney was extremely detail oriented in his business life. He once canceled a corporate retreat at which Abba had been hired to play, saying he found the band’s music “too angry.”
Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his wife’s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five perfect sons — Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip — who married identically tanned wives. Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the stairs.
After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after the G.O.P. He then decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. His campaign slogan, “Vote Romney: More Impressive Than You’ll Ever Be,” was not a hit, but Romney won the race anyway on an environmental platform, promising to make the state safe for steeplechase.
After his governorship, Romney suffered through a midlife crisis, during which he became a social conservative. This prepared the way for his presidential run. He barely won the 2012 Republican primaries after a grueling nine-month campaign, running unopposed. At the convention, where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man, effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker. If elected, he promises to bring all Americans together and make them feel inferior.
Hahaha, you missed the whole point Brooks was making. Not surprising, liberals lack any sense of humor--especially about themselves.
ReplyDeleteBrooks was not blasting Romney, he was blasting you. He took every extreme, distorted, twisted liberal characterization of Romney and wove it into a biography as liberals would imagine.
You've been totally skewered and your celebrating it. LOL!!!
Hahaha back at ya. This is exactly the kind of spin expected from a fright-winger. The problem is that it's so close to the truth, "you" don't get it. Link to the original article and read the comments.
DeleteI see the same "reasoning" on other sites, most notably Business Insider:
Delete"nominally conservative writer David Brooks took that inch and went whole-hog, penning an op-ed that blasts mainstream political reporters and the broader left for their fixation on inane details of the former Massachusetts Governor's biography."
The first problem with that argument is the fact that the mainstream media gives Romney smooth sailing and rarely ever challenges him on any of his "misspeaks." The second part is that Romney has no depth, no character, no content, thus his real biography - whatever that might be - is rather shallow.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/david-brooks-on-the-real-mitt-romney-2012-8#ixzz24sIPrwaM
Since Brooks once wrote a very serious piece on the right-wing extremists corrupting the GOP, it wouldn't make much sense for him to suddenly defend a man who, with his running mate, embodies that very extremism.
Deletehttp://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/2012/03/david-brooks-gop-obituary.html
Conservative Brooks has done something clever here, in pursuit of remaining relevant in an adverse environment. Out of partisanship, Brooks would undoubtedly prefer to write a laudatory piece on the GOP nominee. Given Romney's abysmal record as governor of Massachusetts, his record of pandering to whatever constituency he thinks can be persuaded to support him, and thus, his breathtaking series of 180-degree position changes on important issues, Brooks can't bring himself to try to apply that much lipstick to this political pig.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time -- and especially given the possibility of Romney becoming the next president -- Brooks isn't willing to take a principled conservative's stand against the man. Partisan pundits who earn rat-in-the-woodpile status do their careers no favors, after all.
So, given the suboptimal reality of his situation, Brooks has come up with a parody that offers something for liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, to read and chuckle over.
I've never been a fan of Brooks, but I'll give him credit for this one. He came up with a wickedly clever way through a sticky situation and executed it well.
Are you implying that he's riding the fence, per chance? He's not one of my favorites, either, but occasionally he does write an impressive piece, like this one, and you know he catches a lot of heat when he does so. I've also noticed that a lot of fright-wingers don't seem to like him much. Apparently they think he's not conservative enough and that he's soft on Obama. Ya gotta be full of hate to pass muster with that crowd; they won't accept anything less.
Delete“Romney also went on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his 2008 presidential bid.”
ReplyDeleteCertainly sounds like he’s blasting Romney to me, Will. But hey, maybe you have a point…. dismembering companies and costing people their jobs is actually a thing liberals don’t laugh at a lot.
And in a way, doesn’t this whole comment stream amplify what Romney is? – a blandness you can read whatever you want into.
Don't understand why some of your comments automatically go into Spam. Just noticed this last night. Sorry. Anyway . . .
DeleteI'm just finishing a book on the 2008 primaries and campaign. Horribly written but very interesting nonetheless - a lot of behind the scenes stuff. I was intrigued by the fact that during the GOP primaries when all the players were still playing, not one of them - McCain, Huckabee, etc. - liked or respected Romney. They thought he was a flip-flopper and liar, but even more telling, they thought he was vicious. And now look at them just a few short years later!!! Yuck.
". . .during the GOP primaries when all the players were still playing, not one of them - McCain, Huckabee, etc. - liked or respected Romney."
DeleteRomney isn't a team player and never has been. Republicans like those you mentioned know it. What makes him acceptable now is his demonstrated willingness to say and do anything to win, and his wealth. They understand and respect that, and want to win the White House badly enough, that they will hold their noses and support him as though he's the greatest thing since George W. Bush.
HAAAAAAAAA!!! That was hilarious, Leslie, and it mirrors the truth. What a pathetically boring and lying candidate Romney is!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget mean and dangerous. ;)
Deleteyes! mean and dangerous and totally delusional
ReplyDelete