Updated: Mitt before (Moldy) McCain

Elections 2008,John McCain

            

If you’re not a “Paulbearer,” as you should be, and are entertaining a vote for Mummy McCain, reconsider. 
Today the media, some MSNBC kid with cool specs, added this to its fixed narrative about Mitt Romney: he’s unlikable. I can understand if MSM had a libertarian bent, then they’d have an ideological bone to pick with Romney. But what on earth do these statists have against him other than he’s not liberal and ugly?
A self-made man, Mitt is so obviously appealing–tall, clean-cut, handsome, reserved, polite to a fault, and faithful to his equally lovely wife. That’s unlikable?
Neither is Romney a mindless maniac like McCain. (Nor does he sound remotely like the uncouth, bombastic Donald Trump, the Hue Hefner of American business). Any fool ought to be able to tell that. He’s impressively educated, having “received his B.A., with Highest Honors, from Brigham Young University in 1971; awarded an MBA in 1975 from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.”
Romney’s beautiful wife isn’t a trophy wife; hasn’t been frozen in the botox time warp, and has never nicked pain killers to palliate multiple sclerosis from which she suffers (I’m told it’s a very painful disease.). Cindy McCain is guilty of the aforementioned, except that the downers she pilfered from some charity she “managed” were meant for her pain in the back (or backside, I forget).
Governor Romney made it in the private sector, a sphere into which McCain didn’t even venture, and for good reason. George Bush also sought shelter in the dynastic privileges politics afforded him. Politics is a form of sheltered employment.
I note too that, quite uniquely, Romney’s bias in tweaking the public school system in Massachusetts was toward core curriculum, math, science, and merit pay for teachers. Libertarians would obviously prefer that a plank in the conservative political platform be resurrected, and that the department of education be eliminated. However, if the system is to remain, it has to ditch “progressive” education and reinstate a strict core curriculum and literary canon. (Breaking the teachers unions would also help.) 
Another manufactured complaint against Romney by the McCain mediacrats was that he doesn’t get angry (I thought that was a good thing). And before that it was the flip-flopping, and in particular, Romney had expressed the need to plan for a withdrawal from Iraq, to which the rabid McCain and his minders in the media responded with new flip-flopping charges.
Look, Mitt Romney is not my candidate. I’ve endorsed Ron Paul; he comes closest to my beliefs. But if your toss up is between Romney and McCain, the former is classier, more regal, and much more intelligent. Most importantly, Mitt is more conservative and doesn’t talk about “reaching across the aisle to get things done,” McCain’s euphemism for relinquishing principles in favor of political expediency.

Update: Mitt ought to have just increased his media likeability quotient by getting hot under that well-starched collar of his. Let’s rewind: Rush Limbaugh, who’s been campaigning vigorously and admirably against McCain, got a letter from that old scold Bob Dole telling him how lovable McCain truly is. Mitt responded defiantly:

“Well, it’s probably the last person I would have wanted [to] write a letter for me. I think there are a lot of folks who tend to think that maybe John McCain’s race is a bit like Bob Dole’s race. That it’s the guy who’s next in line, the inevitable choice.”

Call me anti-authoritarian (I’ll concede), but I like this. Bob Dole is the political living dead. What a shame Romney is so inexperienced as to back down and waver anytime he’s attacked for becoming animated. But then again, the fear of being called “unlikable” overwhelms the man.

Wait a sec, Mercer, don’t media malpractitioners apply the “unlikable” adjectival to Mitt’s failure to show emotion?

McCain’s retort makes it clear that if this nudnik is anointed to go up against Hillary or Hussein, we’ll be getting an incontinent stream of pieties every time an ex-military man is criticized (with the exception of Ron Paul; his service doesn’t count).

Cut to the Mummy:

“Gov. Romney’s attack on Bob Dole is disgraceful, and Governor Romney should apologize. Bob Dole is a war hero who has spent his life in service to this nation and nobody has worked harder to build the Republican Party. Bob Dole deserves the respect of every American and certainly every Republican.” Blah, blah, blah.

As John Stossel would say, Give Me a Break. Mitt ought to have told moldy McCain to put a sock in it.