Thursday, August 2, 2012

At least one positive side to Romney's gaffes?

Growing up in the newspaper business I was occasionally reminded by some older pros that it was bad manners - ungentlemanly, really - to  criticize other members of the press.  Newspapers generally are not comfortable about negative references to their line of work, particularly self-reported negative references to their line of work

So I will qualify today's Grumpy Abe's wisdom by saying it is not intended to be criticism but rather  entry level reporting about views expressed by another columnist.

FACT:  Such conservative stalwarts as Karl Rove and  Charles Krauthammer were stunned by Road Scholar Mitt Romney's widely reported gaffes on his overseas trip.  Rove said Mitt blew it; Krauthammer found the Republican candidate's verbal behavior  "incomprehensible," "unbelievable" and "beyond human comprehension."

But in fairness, I should also tell you that at least one editorial board conservative columnist at the Plain Dealer lauded Romney and blamed  his image problems on the always suspect national media.

So here, without further comment, is the conclusion of Kevin O'Brien, while admitting that one of my bad habits, culturally speaking,  is to occasionally read from the bottom up:
"The national media can't get over Obama, so they'll never be your friends.
"Final scorecard:  "You [Romney] visited allies we've badly neglected these last three years, said things that made sense and offended people who don't like you, anyway.
"Good road trip."
Take that, libs  Krauthammer and Rove!




1 comment:

Bill Hershey said...

Good column on Mitt and London - Rove and Krauthammer- should we call them "neoliberals" - were right.

The whole fiasco reminded me of what the Peace Corps director for Ethiopia told us when we got ready to go there in 1968 - "remember, you're guests" - there was much to be "disconcerted" about in Ethiopia but keeping your mouth shut about the problems in public was a good idea for foreigners like me if we wanted to get anything done as teachers.

Mitt didn't get that message while visiting our oldest and most reliable ally - i think he is tone deaf, so to speak .