Saturday, June 30, 2007

Driving Seamus & Other Lapses in Judgement




"The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Mitt Romney family station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest."


This litte tale comes to us from the current edition of Time magazine, The Boston Globe and a lot of others.

For the record, when Romney's kids reported that the dog was so terrified it was crapping itself down the back window ("Gross, dad"), Romney pulled over to a filling station, hosed off the dog and the car, and then reloaded the wet dog back into the carrier on the roof of the car.

The Romney folks apparently saw this a good example of his cool crisis management under fire rather than his callow indifference to canine life, complete lack of judgement, and inability to see a problem when it is in front of him stinking and barking. Nice job Mitt!

If this is how he drives the dog, imagine how he'll drive the country.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

now the article I read said the dog loved it so much he would jump in the carrier anytime it was on the car. Who to believe?

PBurns said...

As someone who has owned station wagons his whole life, and loaded a heck of a lot of stuff on top of them too, I do not think an Irish Setter can jump up on the roof of a station wagon with a large dog crate on top (there is not enough room up there with a crate to do a a straight leap). I know for a fact that there are ZERO car owners who want their dogs to even try such a move, as a dog's claws will wreck the paint job on a car.

Since this story only came out about 36 hours ago, how about looking through the history section of your computer and giving us a source for this claim? Right now it's a vague assertion from an unknown source being made anonymously. I would be astounded if the Romney camp (who first told the Seamus story themselves as a concrete example for a "Mitt is cool under pressure" storyboard) is now saying anything at all. Silence is their best option now, and if they are messing that up, that's just amazingly poor public relations.

And who is it that is going to get you fired? Mitt Romney? Seamus? Neither one of them has a job!

Patrick

Anonymous said...

As Ted Williams says, "He is just a haircut."
Walter H

BorderWars said...

Let me guess at what the "cool headed" solution was:

Mitt drove the car through a car wash with dog and crate right where they were: on top of the car.

What? The dog needed to be washed off too! The man should be praised for solving two problems with one simple and cheap solution!

Anonymous said...

http://www.nbc4.com/politics/13596175/detail.html

from nbc4.com the story was much shorter earlier in the day and had no mention of the "crisis management" only the comments from PETA and his statement that the dog loved it:
"He scrambled up there every time we went on trips," Romney said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh Thursday. "He got it all by himself and enjoyed it."

PBurns said...

It turns out that I was giving Romney too much credit; he really IS an idiot.

The title of this post was "Driving Seamus & Other Lapses in Judgement." Except that, according to Romney, this was not a *momentary* lapse in judgement -- it was a REGULAR lapse in judgement.

Wow.

In truth, I have to say I think Romney is just spinning here. He STILL does not get it. The issue is not just whether the dog was scared, but the SAFETY of the dog. There's a REASON it's illegal to strap a dog carrier, with dog in it, on top of your car -- it's the same reason it's illegal to move your kid that way.

Romney seems tone deaf to the issue, and he's tone deaf NOW, so this is no longer a story about ancient history, but how he thinks now, many years later. Talk about blowing a spark into a firestorm!

The best thing he could have said, was "Yep, I was young and stupid, and weren't we all, at once time or another. I did it once, I would never do it again. Daddy never had to beat me twice. One thing you can say about me is that I learn. Next question?"

Of course, he's not much on self-deprecation, is he? What Presidential candidate is?

Mitt Romney is actually a pretty sad thing in action at this point. He has already proven he will say ANYTHING to get elected, and change his colors faster than a chameleon -- a fact made famous in his stances on guns, stem cell research, abortion and gay rights. Whatever and however you think on these issues, it has to be a little disturbing to see a guy change course so often. Is there anything he would not do or say to better his own position? Apparently not.

For a nice Doonesbury cartoon on all this, see the April 6, 2007 post on this blog at >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2007/04/mitt-romney-fires-aims-and-flip-flops.html )

Patrick

Anonymous said...

It turns out the *luggage* went in the car and the dog went on the roof. Wouldn't want the luggage to fall off into the road, would we?