"Mitt Romney is Bill Clinton With His Pants Up"

For eight long years we have had to suffer the indefatigable embarrassment of a buffoon for a president. I don't have to argue that Bush's policies have been foolish - for that demonstration his approval rating is sufficient. I mean, rather, we Americans have had to wince our way through eight years where our president has dragged his hands across the bodies of foreign leaders, crashed into doors before our largest economic competitor, choked on pretzels, mispronounced a thousand names, demonstrated complete disregard for world geography, and of course, uttered a compendium of sentences so bizarre and inappropriate that their compilation supports careers. In all this time, the usual Republican refrain has been that Bush's behavior is explained by the simple fact that he represents the average, common American who is rough, coarse, and doesn't give a whit about formalities like grammar, diction, or common sense. Not only that, but Republicans have added that being like this - so mediocre seeming, if you will - is something to be celebrated in a leader. Now, even Republicans are changing their tune (and Democrats have no idea). Enter Mitt Romney, the Republican golden boy in terms of money, and the antithesis of Bush's doltish demeanor.

Republican spin master Frank Luntz, who helped frame the GOP's Contract With America, has stated that Romney "looks and sounds presidential." The Politico columnist Roger Simon states that Romney "looks so much like a president would look if television picked our presidents (and it does) that sometimes you have to ask yourself if you are watching the real deal or a careful construction."

Perhaps we are supposed to assess these statements in a vacuum. However, if Romney is the GOP's candidate, he ought to be assessed in relation to what the GOP has previously looked for in a president. As such, in comparison to Bush, who was shown as someone who looked and acted like the so called common man, Romney is being offered as the opposite. For almost eight years, being "presidential" was a no-no with the GOP. All of a sudden it is in vogue again. For almost eight years the GOP wanted us to drink cheap home brewed liquor; now because it is saying that Cabernet Sauvignon is in again, we must follow suit and switch and have our president "sound presidential." What's next? They will demand that the president not spend obscene amounts of time on vacation?

Democrats run the risk of buying into the conservative spin about Romney as "presidential." There is some evidence that they have already. Terry Michael, former DNC spokesman (writing in The Politico, which makes one wonder which side he's working on), has the following to say about Romney:

Mitt Romney is Bill Clinton with his pants up. And he'll very likely be cast in 2008 ("nominated," if you prefer the political science verb) against Clinton's wife, who has all the seductive qualities of John Kerry in a pants suit...

As 2008 approaches, and if Romney can hold off a Fred Thomspon push, mark my words, the only thing we will hear over and above substantive discussion is how "presidential" Mitt Romney is, and what a complete and total mistake it would be for America to not elevate such a "presidential looking" and "presidential sounding" man to the White House. Over and over Romney will be compared in his demeanor to Reagan. Rather than tax reform, we will be subjected to how presidential his chin is cut (Chris Mathews at Hardball has already started that). Hell, the fact that Romney and Reagan's names start with R and contain six letters will be offered by the GOP as proof that Romney is the right man for the White House. In other words, I predict that in a most glorious case of Orwellian dishonesty (which we Democrats will simply accept as postmodern pastiche instead of characterizing it as duplicity) the GOP will itself offer Romney's silkiness as the antithesis of George Bush's doltishness; meanwhile, the public will simply forget the eight years of propaganda about how our presidents must be "common."

If Democrats are smart, they will resist the Republican spin machine by repeating one simple statement over and over: "fool me once, shame on ... (long pause) shame on you? (long pause) Fool me, you can't get fooled again."