Although Those Countries May Barely Notice, Some Americans May Wonder Why Romney Is Snubbing Italy And Ireland

The verdict is certainly in on Romney's publicity stunt of a sojourn to the land of the Anglo Saxons: unmitigated p.r. disaster. Maureen Dowd used her analysis of it as an opportunity to give Obama a back-handed endorsement: "Romney programmed himself into a robot, so he wouldn’t boil over with opinions and convictions, like his more genuine dad. But if we’re going to have someone who’s removed, always struggling to connect and emote, why not stick with the president we already have? Better the android you know than the android you don’t know." Her column, wasn't nearly as cutting as the U.K. press, which nicknamed him "Mitt the Twit" and delighted in informing the British public that the Conservative officials who met with him found him "apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity." That's our Mitt!

In her Sunday column Dowd explained why he so cautious and scripted in terms of his father's ruined political ambitions. "Mitt began to build his own sterile biosphere, shaping his temperament and political career to make sure he never stumbled into such a costly moment of candor... limiting access to reporters, giving interviews mostly to Fox News, hiding personal data, resisting putting out concrete policy proposals, refusing to release tax returns, trimming his conscience to match the moment, avoiding spontaneity."

Even as he angled to appear Anglo-Saxon and obsequiously vowed to restore the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, Mitt condescended to the nation that invented condescension. The Brits swiftly boxed his ears for his insolence and foul calumny.

Conservatives in London oozed scorn. Mayor Boris Johnson mocked “a guy called Mitt Romney,” and Prime Minister David Cameron suggested it was easier to run an Olympics “in the middle of nowhere.” Fleet Street spanked “Nowhere Man” and “Mitt the Twit.”

Conservatives on Fox News were dumbfounded. “You have to shake your head,” Karl Rove said. Charles Krauthammer pronounced the faux pas “unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.”

The alarming thing about Romney is that he has been running for president for years, but he still doesn’t know how to read a room. He doesn’t take anything in, he just puts it out. He doesn’t hear himself the way the rest of us hear him.

In the Mitt-sphere, populated by his shiny white family, the Mormon Church and a narrow, homogenous inner circle, Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable is relentlessly reinforced. That leaves him constantly surprised that other people don’t love what he is saying.

We may wince when the blithering toff, or want-wit, as Shakespeare would say, arrives at the Brits’ home and throws his Cherry Coke Zero can in the prize rose bushes. But what drives his gaffes is his desire to preen over accomplishments.

As a candidate, he’s expected to stoop to conquer, to play a man of the people. But he really wants voters to know that he earned $250 million, and not even in the same business where his dad made a name for himself.

So he keeps blurting out hoity-toity stuff to make sure we know he’s not hoi polloi-- about his friends who are Nascar owners, his wife’s Cadillacs, how he likes to fire people and how he, too, is unemployed. And he builds a car elevator in the middle of an economic slough.

The Brits boxed his ears. Great fun... ho ho. But they don't vote and Americans voters, by and large, don't care that he made a bore and a clown out of himself in London. He didn't do any substantive damage to the Special Relationship, not even by babbling inappropriately about the head of the MI-6. If anything, he helped burnish Obama's image with the British people-- and their Conservative government-- as the right man for the U.S. presidency. Mitt's just a light-weight gaffe machine with a lot of wealthy Mormon friends and a lot of wealthy reactionary friends trying to buy the White House. No harm done. But that wasn't the case in Israel. And I'm not talking about more glaring missteps like scheduling a $50,000/plate banquet on a solemn fast and mourning day, Tisha b'Av and then putting it off for a day and doing a photo opportunity at the Wailing Wall instead. Tisha b'Av is a day of mourning for Jews-- the day Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Of all places and times to schedule a photo op, this was just wrong-- just vulgar and crude. But that's not going to do any substantive damage to the other Special (non Anglo Saxon) Relationship either. At least Bishop Romney didn't start baptizing dead Jews while he was there or-- if he did-- managed to keep it as secret as his 2009 tax returns.

But between all the gaffes, ugly American behavior and slapstick, there was something seriously disturbing and real world problematic-- Romney interfering with delicate, ultra-sensitive foreign policy to make narrow partisan points while overseas. Did he think our Arab allies weren't watching when he went to an Adelson-owned far right newspaper and denounced the new pro-democracy governments in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt? What kind of message was he sending (other than to get the Republican base to vote for him)? As David Kirkpatrick explained to NY Times readers, Romney inserted the Arab Spring into the American elections for the first time. "Romney," he wrote, "discussed the Arab Spring revolts as a problem rather than progress. He asserted against some evidence that the Obama administration had abandoned an agenda of pushing for democratic reform pursued by George W. Bush, and he characterized even the most moderate and Western-friendly Islamists-- those in the political parties leading legislatures in Tunisia and Morocco-- as political opponents. The last runs counter to the Obama administration’s strategy, endorsed by some Republicans in Congress, of building alliances with moderate Islamists where possible." And, as always with Romney, it got worse. "What is this man doing here?" asked Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian negotiator. "Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn't this racism?" But Romney, seated next to Jabba-the-Hutt-like Adelson, was determined to say whatever was required to raise money. And seeking to score points back home, he did some anti-Iran saber rattling in Israel, giving Israel's far right a green light to go ahead and bomb Iran and count on help from a Romney government. This alone should disqualify him from even getting the GOP nomination.

President Obama has also affirmed the right of Israel to defend itself but, in contrast to Romney, Obama has warned of the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran.

"Already, there is too much loose talk of war," Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March. "Now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in and to sustain the broad international coalition we have built."

While Romney is left to implicit contrasts with his Democratic opponent, Obama has been focusing on Israel, signing legislation on Friday increasing military and civilian ties between the U.S. and Israel. And he authorized the release of an additional $70 million in military aid for Israel, a previously announced move that appeared timed to Romney's trip.

Pentagon officials have spoken publicly about the difficulty of such a strike and American officials have expressed concern about the destabilizing effect such military action could have in the region, even if carried out successfully.

The goofball who made such a hash out of Bush communications on Iraq policy, Dan Senor, has been tasked with the same job for Romney... and, predictably, with the same results. His Tisha b'Av pronouncement was “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability the governor would respect that decision." Romney making a fool out of himself in London is one thing... threatening nuclear war against Iran is something else. The man is a danger-- not to Iran, but to America. Let's hope he doesn't start denouncing "the Soviet Union" again when he begins his visit to Poland today, where he's making a blatant play for Polish-American votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. (I wonder why he's skipping Ireland and Italy.) Romney is, however, expected o offer to add Poland to the visa waiver program in return for Polish-American votes. "Craven" and "opportunistic" barely describe the man's character.