General Discussion

kpete

(71,978 posts) Thu Sep 20, 2012, 11:23 PM Sep 2012

Romney is a “Roomba caught in a corner.”

In the last Gilded Age even the Robber Barons had marginally productive day jobs, monopolistic and government subsidized though they usually were. They built and made things: railroads, steel, oil, cars, consumer goods, retail empires, and what have you. Though they were no slouches at conspicuous consumption, union-busting, and outright manipulation of the government to suit their own needs, even the most ruthless left something of value behind; and many, like Carnegie, Rockefeller and others, spent enormous sums to uplift the lower orders as guilt and the fear of Hell beset them in their dotage.

Back then America’s plutocrats aspired to wealth and power in the same way they do today, but perhaps more because of than despite their generally humbler roots, they knew that money and class were two different things and acted accordingly. Today’s plutocrats no longer worry about such errant minutia; they’ve got theirs and now they want yours, too, for literally less than nothing in return.

Worse, they want everyone else to foot the bill. From hoteliers, sports team owners, real estate developers and on and on demanding public subsidies for their paltry and fraudulent contribution to what they so grandly call “job creation,” to polluters, looters, and banksters whining about “regulation” and taxes they don’t even pay, the world has never seen such a bunch of self-entitled freeloaders. And yet, thanks to Citizens (!) United, they can now spend their excess millions purchasing government policy for pennies on the dollar. Not so classy, in my humble opinion.

For all his flaws, and Lordy there are a million of them, what President Obama demonstrates in the video above is that he has something Mitt Romney can never buy: class. Note the distinct lack of snarling, gloating, and lying. Note the fact that, rather than shouting to the mountaintops about Romney’s absurd and un-American statements, his comments are in response to a question about them, and delivered without any unseemly relish. He may be acting, but at least he’s playing the right role.

That’s why, as Ana Marie Cox put it in an excellent Guardian op/ed today (h/t Dirigo), Romney is a “Roomba caught in a corner.” Want to see class warfare? Here it is, and Obama is winning, hands down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/mitt-romney-almost-human-haplessness
http://firedoglake.com/2012/09/20/class-and-the-lack-thereof/