What's Mitt Romney's problem?
After taking President Trump's endorsement to get himself elected senator, Mitt Romney has made quite a show of turning on Trump.
The last two incidents have been notable:
He declared GOP "maverick" congressman Justin Amash "courageous" for joining the Democrats and calling for the impeachment of President Trump in the House.
He also made this ad hominem attack on Trump over the weekend, playing Puritan for us:
On Sunday, Romney was back at it, attacking the president's character. "I think he could substantially improve his game when it comes to helping shape the character of the country," Romney said on CNN.
"I think young people, as well as people around the world, look at the president of the United States and say, 'Does he exhibit the kind of qualities that we would want to emulate?' And those are qualities of humility, of honesty, integrity, and those are things where I think there's been some call, where the president has distanced himself from some of the best qualities of the human character."
So Mitt has lots to teach President Trump about character? Such as — taking the endorsement of the president to get elected, and then turning on him as a no-good rat — and offering him 'character' lessons to fix things? Good old Mitt, the "turnaround expert" who "fixes things," as he sold himself to voters during his failed 2012 presidential campaign. Mark Twain couldn't have cooked up a better charlatan.
Because the fact of the matter is, there's little in Trump's performance to fix. Can Romney blast Trump for his tax cuts? Can he attack him for his talent for making America's most intractable enemies bend to avoid trouble with him? Can he scream about Trump's Supreme Court appointments? Can he holler about the roaring U.S. economy with its record low unemployment rates for that 47% he deplored earlier — as well as blacks, Hispanics, women, the handicapped, the formerly incarcerated, a slew of people who've always had harder times getting jobs? Can he holler about Trump's policies that foster rising wages among workers, or his firm stance for rule of law at the border?
Of course not — his Utah voters would despise him.
So now we have Romney going after Trump's character, joining the Democrats, given that there is nothing else to criticize. His latest obnoxious statements are actually a progression from a long string of attacks on Trump, described by the Examiner here, and they're getting more and more personal as well as Miss Grundy-an.
The Americans who voted for President Trump in droves have already sent a message to the political elites — that if the right policies are in place, they don't care about off-color remarks about women or multiple marriages, or any of the "character" flaws Mitt seems to intent to undercut President Trump for. Why is he doing this? Trump never did anything to him. But here he is, going after Trump with the best of the Democrats.
Maybe it's his own character he ought to be looking at for the next 'fix it.' For the rest of us, it's obvious that it stinks.
Image credit: Caricature by DonkeyHotey via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.