If you’re like most Americans, you don’t pay much attention to what WaPo’s Dana Milbank says. The following is a pretty good example of why that’s a good idea:
The nation is heading toward the “fiscal cliff,” but have no fear: Mitt Romney is coming to the rescue — of Marriott International Inc.
In his first public comments since election night, the defeated Republican presidential nominee issued a statement Monday announcing his next step. An appeal to national unity? A charitable initiative?
No, he announced that he was rejoining the hotel chain’s board of directors. “It is an honor to once again be able to serve in the company of leaders like Bill Marriott,” said Romney’s statement, distributed by Marriott.
It was emblematic of the tone-deaf, I-have-some-great-friends-that-are-NASCAR-team-owners moments that contributed to his loss. The country is in a crisis, political leaders in a standoff, and Romney is joining his buddy’s corporate board…
Romney’s post-election behavior has been, in a word, small. Never again, likely, will his voice and influence be as powerful as they are now. Yet rather than stepping forward to help find a way out of the fiscal standoff, or to help his party rebuild itself, he delivered a perfunctory concession speech, told wealthy donors that Obama won by giving “gifts” to minorities, then avoided the press at a private lunch with President Obama.
Milbank goes on in this vein for quite a bit. His thesis is simple: Now that Romney has lost, he owes Obama for beating him. I’m sure Milbank said the same thing to Al Gore in 2000: “Time to line up and do what the President of the United States tells you, Al. Now put down that cruller and march.”
If Mitt Romney is so important to the future of America, why did Milbank and his fellow travelers work so hard to drag Obama across the finish line? They told us Romney is a really bad guy — a money-grubbing, cancer-causing, tax-dodging tyrant in magic underpants who wants to trample Big Bird with his wife’s dancing horse — and yet now they’re concern-trolling us about how he shouldn’t bow out of public life.
Dude. You won. Get over it.
P.S. That photo of Romney and Obama shaking hands in the Oval Office is supposedly evidence of Obama’s largesse, because of course he’s such a great guy. But Romney doesn’t get any credit for showing up. Can you imagine Al Gore agreeing to be in the same room as George Bush ever again, let alone shaking hands with him?