EMPATHY, MITTBOT STYLE
I haven't seen a clip of this, so I don't know how it actually came off if you were there watching it, but, as described here, it just seems, well, peculiar:
PALM BEACH, FL -- Softening somewhat his response to recent Republican criticism of his private sector career, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sought to project sympathy with out-of-work Americans, calling unemployment "not just a statistic."
"Being unemployed for a long period of time means families having a hard time making ends meet," Romney said. "It means in some cases people having trouble in their marriages, losing faith, becoming depressed."
It does? Really, Mitt? Hey, thanks for the clarification!
That's Romney softening? To me he sounds like Hanna, the adolescent heroine of the eponymous 2011 movie, who's lived nearly her entire life in a cabin in the woods with her father, a man devoted to cultivating her rather extraordinary ability to master survival skills and book knowledge, the result being that she's both a kick-ass warrior and a brainiac who recites passages from books verbatim. She decides to leave seclusion and take her chances in the real world, and at one point she meets a young man with whom she's on the verge of sharing her first kiss. Here's what she says to him:
Kissing requires a total of 34 facial muscles, and 112 postural muscles. The most important muscle involved is the orbicularis oris muscle, because it is used to pucker the lips.
That's what Romney's little recitation of poverty facts reminds me of.
Now, it would be amusing if he followed this up the way Hanna follows up her mini-recitaion. (SPOILER ALERT: She body-slams the guy.) But he's not that kind of well-trained automaton.
To be fair, here's what I learned in the "quiet room". Restrictive trusts cause incredible stress on heirs when Gram is being courted by lawyers and tax accountants in her final days. Managing your mansion means never having downtime. There are too many passwords to keep track of, new technology, repairmen to call, etc. Being rich requires you to keep up on fashion, politics and charity events. Just being rich mean you earn it every day.
ReplyDeleteThat's credit card rich, Danp. Faux.
ReplyDeleteIf you're managing your own mansion, you ain't "rich".
I think you nailed it.
ReplyDeleteMitt's a soulless cyborg. And he shouldn't try to relate to anyone but his own people - The Have's, The Have More's, and The Want It Alls.
What made him ever choose to get into politics, besides vanity and a sense of entitlement, I mean?
Even an insufferably entitled little prep school douchebag of a brat, like W, could put on a faux Texas accent, and tone-down his smirk, which some rubes then confused as him having charm and a smile.
Mitt reminds me of that expensive couch you richer Aunt had, which she then had plastic slip-covers made for, so that if you ever did think of sitting on it, it wouldn't make you comfortable - no matter how hard you tried or squirmed.
But your wealthier Aunt would sit on it and acted like it was the most comfortable thing in the world!
Mitt's that platic-covered couch: Shiny, new, protected, meant to stay that way, and uncomfortable with any regular asses getting near it.
This is exactly why I feel pretty confident about the outcome if Mitty's nominated. If you were to combine DNA from Poppy Bush and Thomas E. Dewey, I think you'd get something much like Romney - and no amount of packaging or prepping could enable such a critter to become credibly empathic to Your Average Voter (whoever that is).
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