As I frequently do, I read David Brooks column yesterday in the Times. I don’t always agree with him, but most of the time I do, and I always enjoy his perception and wit.
He wrote a column entitled “Thurston Howell Romney”---and the title almost says it all. For those of you too young to remember the hilarious TV show “Gilligan’s Island” about a zany group marooned on a desert island, Thurston Howell III was a multi-millionaire in a world of his own anywhere in the world including a deserted island.
Recent utterings from the Republican candidate for the presidency were the inspiration for Brook’s title. Now Brooks is no wild-eyed liberal by any means: he is Republican by nature and inclination with a tendency to thoughtful moderation and a keen sense of reality. But Romney’s recent rantings even got to him. Until recently, his Republican sympathies were inclining him toward Romney, but these latest gaffes shocked him.
Even Brooks is beginning to believe that Romney lives in an isolated castle on a lofty mountain top, surrounded by his kind, the multi-rich who live an oblivious life to reality. He, plain and simple, just doesn’t get it: that a whole lot of people in this country depend to some degree or other on government entitlements---and that does not make them dead beats. Sure, we have our share of dead beats trying to beat the system, but the vast majority of those entitled need help in some form or another.
I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family of means who could afford to send me to an excellent prep school in the east and to college there. In my time at those schools I rubbed shoulders with any number of Romneys or Thurston Howells. Scott Fitzgerald exclaimed, “The very rich are very different from you and me”. He rubbed shoulders with a lot of them at Princeton and recognized the species, as reflected in his writings. The very rich are so insulated in a cocoon of money that they don’t recognize the problems of the outside world and simply don’t have to deal with little mundane problems like paying a mortgage or allotting a budget for groceries. They hire people to handle those little daily transactions while they flit from one home to several others or on cruises to exotic (or at least rich) ports. Summer holidays in Cannes or the Algarve of Portugal, Barbados in the winter, skiing holidays at St. Moritz---you name it, they’ve done it.
Don’t begrudge them their wealth. Some ancestor, or, in some cases, some recent enterprising familial dynamo has built an empire. That’s great, God bless ‘em, that’s the ultimate crowning of the American Dream. But keep one foot in the real world and remember that a lot of working people helped you realize that dream.
Brooks also added this line: “Personally, I think he’s a kind decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he’s not…” I would agree with that: Mitt Romney is essentially a good man and in reality, I suspect, a centrist. He has sold his soul to the far right to gain acceptance. The Bible, to paraphrase, says words to the effect that selling your own soul to gain the world gains you naught.
I think Mitt is going to pay that price.
He's a chameleon; he will be whatever you want him to be to get your vote.
ReplyDeleteThe only other candidate I can readily think of comparable to Mitt Romney is Jack Kennedy. In his heart of heart I think Romney was a moderate and had to move right in order to get the nomination. Kennedy moved right a bit because the south demanded it. I think the big difference in these men is the way they look at government service. Kennedy saw it a vehicle to do good and help his fellow man. Based on what Romney says, I'm not sure he feels government service is a good thing at all. He is blinded to how most of Americans live.
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