This is one of the dumbest, most arrogant articles I’ve ever read. The stupid starts in the title.
Romney can retire later
Mitt Romney isn’t actually retiring. As Milbank even notes in the article, Romney is taking on another job when he doesn’t have to. He just wants to work. Milbank just wants him to save Barack Obama and help destroy the Republican Party.
The nation is heading toward the “fiscal cliff,” but have no fear: Mitt Romney is coming to the rescue — of Marriott International Inc.
In his first public comments since election night, the defeated Republican presidential nominee issued a statement Monday announcing his next step. An appeal to national unity? A charitable initiative?
No, he announced that he was rejoining the hotel chain’s board of directors. “It is an honor to once again be able to serve in the company of leaders like Bill Marriott,” said Romney’s statement, distributed by Marriott.
It was emblematic of the tone-deaf, I-have-some-great-friends-that-are-NASCAR-team-owners moments that contributed to his loss. The country is in a crisis, political leaders in a standoff, and Romney is joining his buddy’s corporate board.
Look, Milbank, the headline of your article does not match the factual content. Romney did not retire. But having lost the election, he is under no obligation to do anything about the political standoff. In fact, he has no power to intervene in it. He did not get us into the crisis, as he was not in government at any point during the process that got us here. He is a private citizen. He offered to help fix it, but a slim majority of the American people decided to keep the president who did get us here in the job.
Milbank, as a journalist, does have a position from which he could point out that Barack Obama is not negotiating at all, much less in good faith. Milbank could also spend a few pixels noting that the Democrat-controlled Senate won’t even bring Obama’s fiscal cliff offer up for a vote. Instead, Milbank attacks Mitt Romney.
Romney is a private citizen now and free to do as he chooses. But it’s not as if he needs the money; the $170,000 in cash and stock that Marriott directors received in the most recent year reported is but a sliver of the $20 million or so Romney takes in annually from his investments.
So, obviously, Romney is not joining Marriott just for the money.
More to the point, Romney’s first post-election move served to confirm the exhaustive report my Post colleague Philip Rucker did on Romney’s “rapid retreat into seclusion.” Rucker, who covered the Romney campaign for this paper, wrote that in the former candidate’s disappearance he is “exhibiting the same detachment that made it so difficult for him to connect with the body politic through six years of running for president.”
More to the point, reporters like Milbank and his Post colleagues are biased hacks. Romney went into “seclusion” by showing up at Disney World, having lunch with the president, and then by joining the board of Marriott. He didn’t hole up in a cabin in the woods, you idiots.
He didn’t win the election. What is he supposed to do, sleep on the streets in Washington just in case someone needs his financial acumen? Clearly, a slim majority of the American people thought that his financial skills were less useful in our time of crisis than whatever skills Barack Obama brings to the presidency. Unfortunately we all get to live with the consequences of that choice.
Romney’s post-election behavior has been, in a word, small. Never again, likely, will his voice and influence be as powerful as they are now. Yet rather than stepping forward to help find a way out of the fiscal standoff, or to help his party rebuild itself, he delivered a perfunctory concession speech, told wealthy donors that Obama won by giving “gifts” to minorities, then avoided the press at a private lunch with President Obama.
Though keeping nominal residence in Massachusetts, the state he led as governor, he moved out to his California home and has been spotted at Disneyland, at the new “Twilight” movie, at a pizza place, pumping gas and going to the gym. In warm weather, he plans to live at his lakefront manse in New Hampshire. The man who spoke passionately about his love for the American auto industry has been driving around in a new Audi Q7.
Avoiding the press is a sign of sanity. Who wants to deal with people who just spent a year trashing you, and are still trashing you? More to the point, who in the right mind wants to spend any time at all with Dana Milbank?
I wonder, what kind of car does Dana Milbank drive? Someone needs to do hit pieces on arrogant reporters like him, just to give him a taste of what he does to other people.
A former adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, told Rucker that Romney will “be involved in some fashion” in public service. And nobody can begrudge Romney some downtime.
Then, what’s the point of your article, Milbank?
It’s understandable that Romney would now feel like shrinking from the scene: He offered the people a choice, and they chose otherwise. But this is a crucial time for the country and particularly for Romney’s Republican Party, which must unshackle itself from the far right or become irrelevant.
I’m sorry, what? Milbank wants Romney to come out and give Barack Obama an assist in the fiscal cliff talks? By trashing his fellow Republicans?
Are you an idiot, Dana Milbank? Barack Obama just spent a year calling Mitt Romney a bully, a felon, and a murderer. Why on earth would Romney lift a finger to help Obama after that?
Milbank’s piece is mindblowingly dumb, biased hackery unworthy of the bowels of Talking Points Memo. Just unbelievable in its obnoxious, arrogant, twittery.
Just ONCE I’d like one of these jackholes to define “far right”. Then I’d like to ask them if a “far left” exists, and if so who inhabits it.
And Romney is clearly a much bigger man than I am. If I were him the stament would have ended with “…leaders like Bill Mariott. The rest of you can go F yourselves”.
Not only is Mitt Romney eminently more qualified to be POTUS than Barack Obama, but even Bill Marriott has more skills and could do a much better job of running the country. Milbank fears this may all end badly for Barry and needs Mitt to come to the rescue. That’s what happens, Dana, when you back an empty suit in an empty chair for reelection. It would be cheaper if we bought him that $38 million Hawaiian mansion if he promised to retire from politics stat. Of course, even then he’d break his promise because he’s untrustworthy.
“Romney eminently more qualified to be POTUS than Barack Obama,”
Not a very tough criterion. A dead possum would be more qualified.
So if there is no budget deal, it’s Mitt Romney’s fault, not the guy who has been president the last four year. Got it, hack Milbank.
It’s obvious that Dana Milbank and the rest of the presstitutes of his professional hive-mind believe that, having been born in the United States to a successful intact family and therefore accomplishing NOTHING in his life, only leeching off a generous government, Mitt Romney simply OWES IT TO HIS COUNTRY to make himself available as a whipping-boy for any and all problems for the duration of the Obama administration. Simple and obvious justice in their eyes.
For the Love of Life Orchestra, I HATE these people. If they could actually torture the man on live television and make his grandchildren watch, they would.
G-d, I miss Andrew Breitbart…
“The country is in a crisis, political leaders in a standoff, and Romney
is joining his buddy’s corporate board.”
And the “president” you scumbags were so desperate to return to office is going golfing and planning a vacation in Hawaii at the expense of the country that is in crisis. F**k you, Millbank. F**k the Washington Pus. F**k all of you.
You reap what you sow, Milbank. You shilled for an economic dunce who took a giant dump on the US economy the last 4 years when we would have been out of this recession over 3 years ago if he’d just left things alone. The CBO said the Bush recession ended in June, 2009. The rest, unfortunately, falls on your guy, who apparently still can’t figure out how to govern. His only skills are promoting himself and lying about everyone else. We’re heading into a double-dip recession because of his feckless and reckless policies and regulations and both you and he are looking for a scapegoat. God forbid Barry actually take responsibility for his economic illiteracy and his own incompetence. Perhaps Barry offered Mitt the job of Business Czar during that private lunch and Mitt turned it down. Now Dana wants to publicly pressure him to reconsider. Something to think about…
Suspicion #1 – Blaming Bush isn’t working any more. Besides, there is reason to believe Bush may be thinking about pushing back and a few million people might remember that they had jobs when Bush was President.
Suspicion #2 – Obama’s desperate for a new strawman…. and Romney’s not playing fair.
Next on the list to blame?
It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.
– like Mitt.
Dana needs to start reading Heartiste.
All that site does is bring out the worst in both men and women. Do you really want everybody to learn to behave like animals who survive by manipulating each other’s instincts?
Just shows that Dana Milbank lives in the Washington bubble. What an idiotic premise.
Obviously the problem is the leftists desperately need an enemy to blame for the current crisis and the about to be epic crisis. The Republicans look like they are putting forward plan after plan after plan. And Obama is rebuffing them. Dana reminds me of the abusive addicted wife left by her fed-up husband, who then stands in the doorway and shouts to him: “Hey, what am I supposed to do now?”
Romney turns and says — Whatever, suckers….
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
Excellent example of someone with a reprobate mind.
Actually I’m guessing Dana and his friends at whatever secret group has replaced the journolist had come up with some smarmy one liners and is disappointed he now does not get to use them.
Wasn’t Mitt Romney proclaimed to be “not one of us?” Perhaps Mr. Milbank can explain how Mr. Romney could possibly be of any help if he doesn’t even understand “us.”
“But this is a crucial time for the country and particularly for Romney’s Republican Party, which must unshackle itself from the far right or become irrelevant.”
This reader suspects Milibank expects Romney to “show leadership” by getting his fellow Republicans to adopt Obama’s program. And if he fails to do so, they get to call him an “obstructionist” sticking up for his rich buddies, “proving” the public made the right choice sticking with Obama. Romney is right not to play that game. Let the Democrats come to him.
Obviously, Mitt Romney was the GOP candidate that the Democrats wanted. That says a lot.
It’s time to reboot the GOP.
WordPress Fail: Attempt #4 – someone really should fix this problem.
If it weren’t so potentially serious, this whole “crisis” would be amusing. The law mandating the budget cliff and sequestration was passed by Congress and signed by Obama. They wrote and signed the law the way they did and hailed it as a great achievement at the time. What did they think would happen?
Make them own it.
These leftist pukes can go phuck themselves. This is Barfican’s mess
“Dana” is a bloke? When I was growing up, Dana was a famous singer from the Irish Republic; she was (and is) female. I’m not surprised your Dana is pretty confused.