Mitt Romney Slays Them In London

Pure 24-carat gold for the Obama campaign! Only in fevered campaign dreams does it ever get THIS GOOD! And he's off to Jerusalem too. Oh joy!

First, Timothy Noah:

Right now you're probably wondering: What possessed Mitt Romney to insult the Conservative Prime Minister of Britain--on a foreign trip meant to demonstrate Romney's supposedly superior ability to manage foreign affairs--by criticizing the U.K.'s handling of the Olympic games on the eve of their commencement? This blunder catches Romney in an exquisite trap of his own making. On the one hand, he seems to have genuinely angered David Cameron, a rare European ally in the lonely fight against European-style socialism. On the other hand, Romney's 11th Commandment is: Thou Shalt Not Apologize To Foreign Leaders, especially when on foreign soil. The guy wrote a whole book about it! How could Romney be so stupid as to hoist himself on this petard?

...So how did Romney get himself into this mess? I think that becomes clear when you look at what Romney went on to say to Williams after he noted that the early signs about the London Olympics were discouraging:

Because there are three parts that makes Games successful. Number one, of course, are the athletes. That's what overwhelmingly the Games are about. Number two are the volunteers. And they'll have great volunteers here. But number three are the people of the country. Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.

You've heard this voice before. It is the voice of a comically self-satisfied man basking in the glory of achieving something very few mortals would be capable of--in this case, running a successful Olympic Games. Indeed, Romney would have you believe that he didn't just make the Salt Lake City games a success--he saved the Olympics themselves. He grabbed ahold of an Olympic torch extinguished by international scandal and relit the flame. That is the unembarrassed message of Romney's 2004 book Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games.

...It's also, as I've written before ("No Medal For You,") a pretty weak case. Romney did a perfectly fine job running the Olympics, but so have lots of other people. ... Romney is deeply invested in the idea that it takes superhuman skills to save an Olympic Games from the disaster and international humiliation to which it naturally inclines. The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I'm afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment.

And Joan Walsh:

To recap: He called the state of the games “disconcerting” and told NBC’s Brian Williams, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.” He was rebuked by Prime Minister David Cameron and mocked by London Mayor Boris Johnson, in a speech that played hourly on the BBC Thursday. “I hear there’s a guy, there’s a guy called Mitt Romney, who wants to know whether we’re ready. He wants to know whether we’re ready? Are we ready?” And the crowd went wild, screaming “Yeah!” (Later Johnson led the throng in chanting “Yes we can,” coincidentally the 2008 slogan of Romney’s electoral rival, President Obama.)

Then Romney publicly discussed a briefing by MI6 head John Sawers (looking extremely chastened), when it’s customary to keep such briefings private. He seemed to forget Labor Party leader Ed Miliband’s name when they met. “Like you, Mr. Leader, I look forward to our conversations this morning,” Romney said to Miliband, shaking his hand.

Also on Thursday, unbelievably, our attention was called to an idiotic passage in Romney’s book, “No Apology,” in which he dismissed Britain as “a tiny island nobody wants.” (What kind of person talks like that about another country? I mean, what kind of person who wants to be president talks like that about another country?)

Romney went on:

Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth’s land and a quarter of the earth’s population.

By the end of the day, when asked by BBCNewsnight whether Romney will carry the Olympic torch, Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson replied, “Certainly not after today.”

...[S]ome conservatives are worried. Charles Krauthammer called Romney’s Olympics remarks “unbelievable” and “incomprehensible.”

I’ve written that Romney’s many gaffes reflect his enormous sense of entitlement and lamentable lack of empathy. Surveying British Olympics logistics, he felt entitled to hold forth on its flaws harshly, because that’s the sort of thing he did at Bain Capital. Perhaps Romney thinks the British should have outsourced the Olympics. Or maybe he sees an opening for a leveraged buyout, to make it more efficient. At any rate, the guy who said, “I like to be able to fire people who provide services to me,” is a guy used to mercilessly appraising a situation and delivering a slashing verdict. He clearly feels he’s entitled to do that anywhere.

...Romney wrapped up his no-good very-bad day at a fundraiser with the banks at the heart of the Libor scandal. Sad to say, it was probably a step up for him, given all the rancor he provoked. Maybe that was the idea: Commit a lot of gaffes to distract the media from your banking fundraiser. Don’t let it turn into a Hamptons soiree kind of thing.

And more pundits at Daily Kos:

Toby Harnden:

Later on, Romney told donors at a fundraiser (tickets had been slashed from $25,000 to $10,000 during the day) that he was 'looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again'.

The problem with that applause line is that the Jacob Epstein bust was a personal loan from Britain to President George W. Bush made in July 2001 for the duration of his presidency.

When Obama took over from Bush, the loan expired and he apparently showed no interest in extending it. The bust was returned to the Government Art Collection.

The whole issue, which has been used to portray Obama as anti-British, is a sore point for British diplomats, who view it as presumptuous for Romney to assume the bust would be loaned to him.

And then the incorrigible Mayor Boris Johnson turned the day into what one American reporter on the trip aptly described as a 'Cat 4 manurestorm' when he mocked Romney before 60,000 people.

National Journal:

Mitt Romney's clumsy start to his overseas trip is shaping up as a stark contrast to candidate Barack Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe in July 2008, when he managed to strike perfect pitch at press conferences and in visits with foreign leaders.

The Telegraph:

Mitt Romney is perhaps the only politician who could start a trip that was supposed to be a charm offensive by being utterly devoid of charm and mildly offensive.