Mitt Romney Will Treat Americans Like He Treated His Dog

I know she's gained a reputation for going on and on about Mitt Romney travelling all the way to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car, but Gail Collins has a point.

The anecdote has become symbolic as representing Romney as a cold and practical problem-solver, detached from any emotion relative to the situation. There have been many on the Right and the Left who have criticised the President's cool facade and interpreted it as emotional detachment. I wonder how they would perceive Mitt Romney?

For one last time, let's recap Gail Collin's assessment of the anecdote in her latest column:-

Neil Swidey, the Boston Globe reporter who first broke the Seamus story in 2007, wrote recently that he had been avoiding a return to the topic for fear that some day the dog would wind up in the lead of his obituary.

Which I can totally understand.

The story took place in 1983, when the Romney family made a 12-hour pilgrimage from Boston to a vacation home in Canada. Romney, his wife, Ann, and five sons were in the station wagon. Seamus was in a crate, or kennel, on the roof.

At some point — possibly in response to the excitement about being passed by tractor-trailers while floating like a furry maraschino cherry on top of the car, Seamus developed diarrhea. And Romney, who had designated all the acceptable rest stops before beginning the trip, was forced to make an unscheduled trip to a gas station. Where he kept the family in the car while he hosed down the station wagon and the dog, then returned to the highway.

“It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management,” Swidey wrote.

People, does any of this sound appealing? Elect Mitt Romney and he will take the nation on the road to the future. Some of us will be stuck on the roof. The rest of us will be inside singing camp songs and waiting for the day when the master plan lets us stop to visit the bathroom. Plus, anybody who screws up on the way to the future gets the hose.

The emphases are mine, but does the last bit sound like anything other than what life would be like with the ultra-conservative tranche of the Republican Party in charge of everything and pulling the strings of the Romney puppet king?