When you hear the name Mitt Romney, what are the first two or three things that pop into your head?
I mean, other than the fact that he’s from Utah and he speaks French.
Come to think of it, why does Romney speak French? Did he have a special reason to learn that language at a specific point in his life?
Oh, one more question. If you were writing a feature about tensions between Romney and one Donald Trump — that thrice-married New York City playboy — what major influence on the life and squeaky-clean image of the Utah senator would you have to struggle to avoid mentioning?
This brings us to this weekend’s think piece, a McKay Coppins feature in The Atlantic that ran with this double-decker headline:
The Liberation of Mitt Romney
The newly rebellious senator has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial.
Remember that the focus on this piece is on Romney’s willingness to stand in judgment of Trump’s character and moral fiber, or lack thereof. So how in the world did it avoid any discussion of his strong and very public faith as a leader, for many years, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Were editors scared to use the “M-word,” in light of recent labeling changes in this faith?
Look at the emphasis in this passage:
Electing a president, the argument goes, is like hiring a plumber — you don’t care about his character, you just want him to get the job done. Sitting in his Senate office, Romney is indignant. “Are you worried that your plumber overcharges you?” he asks. “Are you worried that the plumber’s going to scream at your kids? Are you worried that the plumber is going to squeal out of your driveway?” I am playing devil’s advocate; he is attempting an exorcism.
To Romney, Trump’s performance as president is inextricably tangled up in his character. “Berating another person, or calling them names, or demeaning a class of people, not telling the truth — those are not private things,” he says, adding: “If during the campaign you pay a porn star $130,000, that now comes into the public domain.”
At this, Romney glances over at two of his aides who are watching silently from the other end of the room, and grins. “They’re going, Oh gosh, shut up.”
OK, what about the style of Romney, the man?
What is missing from this paragraph?
With his neat coif, square jaw, and G-rated diction, Romney has always emanated a kind of old-fashioned civic starchiness. In the past, this quality has been the object of occasional ridicule. (During his 2012 presidential bid, reporters like me often snickered at his penchant for quoting lines from “America the Beautiful,” which he called his favorite of the “patriotic hymns.”) But in these decidedly more vulgar times, there is a certain appeal to the senator’s wholesomeness.
There is a vague, generic reference to “faith,” in the next clip, but nothing more.
What’s up with this?
Romney told me that he doesn’t think much anymore about his 2012 defeat to Barack Obama. “My life is not defined in my own mind by political wins and losses,” he said. “You know, I had my career in business, I’ve got my family, my faith — that’s kind of my life, and this is something I do to make a difference. So I don’t attach the kind of — I don’t know — psychic currency to it that people who made politics their entire life.”
One more time! Where is home base for Romney?
Check out this reference to his life, in contrast with that of The Donald:
They manage that tension in different ways: While the president spent a too-online Saturday earlier this month unloading on Twitter — launching #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY into the canon of viral Trump taunts—Romney enjoyed a quiet afternoon picking apples with his grandkids in Utah and refusing to take the bait.
This is still a very interesting and timely piece of work. By all means read it.
But there is one rather gaping hole in it. You think?