I guess I was wrong yesterday when I counselled Mitt Romney to confine his overseas trip to London and come home before getting into trouble: a better piece of advice would have been for him to skip the U.K. leg as well.
After less than thirty-six hours on the ground, the Mittster is engaged in damage control after three separate slipups: an interview with NBC News in which he appeared to criticize how the Brits have prepared for the Games, adding, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out”; a suggestion from one of his advisers that our African-American President couldn’t understand the so-called “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain; and renewed publicity about his wife’s involvement in the aristocratic equine sport of dressage.
After a meeting today with David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, Romney rowed back from his comment to Brian Williams that he had found some aspects of London’s prep work, such as the transport and security arrangements, “disconcerting,” and said he was sure the games would be “highly successful.” The damage had already been done, though. Even Cameron appeared miffed by Romney’s earlier remarks; he issued what sounded suspiciously like a jibe about the American’s leadership role in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron said. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”
The British press is busy whipping up the controversy and adding some new elements. In today’s issue of the Daily Mail, the self-styled voice of middle England, a headline blared: “Who invited him?” A report on the Guardian’s Web site said that Romney had breached protocol by revealing that he had met with Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, the British intelligence agency, whose activities are kept shrouded in secrecy. The Independent suggested that he had forgotten the name of Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, with whom he also had a meeting. The transcript of a brief press conference that the two gave suggested he had indeed suffered a memory lapse: “Like you, Mr. Leader, I look forward to our conversations this morning,” Romney said with Miliband at his side.
If there were a medal for diplomacy, Romney would already have been eliminated from the competition. “Good old Mitt,” tweeted Paul Harris, an American correspondent for the Guardian. “His charm offensive in the UK failed to be charming, but he really pulled off the offensive bit.” Added a Guardian reader: “Only someone who understands our Anglo-Saxon heritage could piss off the Brits so early into his trip.”
Romney’s troubles started before he left. According to an incendiary story by the Daily Telegraph’s Washington correspondent, Jon Swaine, two of Romney’s foreign policy advisers said that President Obama had adopted a chilly stance towards the U.K., which a Romney Administration would reverse. If the advisers had quit there, it wouldn’t have been much of a scoop. But they didn’t: “We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he”—Romney—“feels that the special relationship is special,” one of the advisers said. “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”
Once the Mittster was safely ensconsed in the White House, his advisers went on, he would restore to the Oval Office a bust of Winston Churchill, which the Obama Administration returned to the British Embassy in 2009. “Obama is a Left-winger,” one of advisers averred. “He doesn’t value the Nato alliance as much, he’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’”
The Telegraph story appeared just as Romney was landing in London. Not only did it violate the tradition that Presidents and Presidential candidates refrain from domestic bickering when they are abroad, it raised the spectre of racism. David Axelrod, who knows a softball over the middle of the plate when he sees one, called the “Anglo-Saxon” comments “stunningly offensive,” and Jennifer Psaki, a White House spokeswoman, said they “raise a question as to whether Mitt Romney and his team are ready to have serious conversation about a foreign policy.”
Forced onto the defensive, the Romney campaign denied the authenticity of the article. “It’s not true,” spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg told ABC News. “If anyone said that, they weren’t reflecting the views of Gov. Romney or anyone inside the campaign.” Another Romney spokesman, Ryan Williams, said that the report was based on “false quotes.” The Telegraph’s Swaine, though, is sticking by his story.
Perhaps the only thing for Mitt to do now is to disavow the “special relationship,” which hasn’t been so special for many years now, anyway. Or, if he wishes to go in the opposite direction, maybe he could appear on the BBC and bash out Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory.” It probably wouldn’t win him many votes in the U.S., but the Brits, desperate for something to cheer about as the Games begin, might appreciate it.
One thing Romney won’t be doing, evidently, is watching Rafalca, a fifteen-year-old brown mare that his wife co-owns, competing in the dressage competition, which starts next week. “I have to tell you, this is Ann’s sport,” he told Brian Williams. “I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on…. She will get the chance to see it. I will not be watching the event.”
So there you have it: the Mittster’s not interested in a poncy sport like dressage. He’ll be too busy watching the boxing and checking out the chicks in the beach volleyball competition. No, he didn’t exactly say that. But I know it’s true. He’s just a regular American guy, after all, and not the first one to get into a spot of bother on a summer trip abroad.
Photograph by Charles Dharapak/AP Photo.