Posted on 02/09/2020 5:00:44 AM PST by Kaslin
Two words leaped to mind just before Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, announced that he would vote to convict President Donald Trump on one article of impeachment: frog's legs.
Frog's legs were on the menu as then-president-elect and Romney dined at Jean-Georges, a high-ticket eatery inside the (where else?) Trump Hotel in November 2016. After having refused to endorse Trump and calling him unworthy of the Oval Office, Romney nonetheless publicly auditioned for the prestigious secretary of state post.
It was a public humiliation for Romney, the GOP 2012 nominee, who had to eat swamp meat and his own words while cameras and social media captured the humbling moment for all the world.
The frog's legs supper let some of the air out of Romney's sanctimony tires.
Trump had reason to want to bring the former Massachusetts governor down a notch. In February 2012, Trump kindly endorsed Romney, who was a bit ambivalent about the whole exercise. At the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Romney offered, "There are some things that you can't just imagine happening in your life."
Four years later, Romney refused to repay the favor. In March 2016, he tried to stop Trump in an address that labeled the frontrunner "a phony and a fraud." Romney even tweeted, "If Trump had said four years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement."
Not only was Romney willing to forget Trump's unworthiness after Trump won in 2016, but also he accepted Trump's endorsement in 2018 when he ran for Senate in Utah.
There are those who say Romney turned on Trump out of envy because the one-time reality TV star succeeded in 2016 where the former Massachusetts governor failed four years earlier. But I suspect a big factor may have been that Trump made Romney tap dance in front of the world -- that he could forgive Trump winning but not Trump playing him for a position Romney would never get.
As conservative author Arthur Brooks noted at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, "When you are treated with contempt, you never forget it."
Ironically, Brooks made that remark mere minutes before Trump used the annual prayer event to denounce his "enemies."
Trump called out Romney (although not by name), when he told the room, "I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong."
Romney's revenge is a dessert best served cold. After trying to get on the Trump team, he is about to become the conscience of anti-Trump Washington. Romney gave an interview to Fox News' Chris Wallace, who asked him to give viewers a sense of how difficult the decision to vote to convict Trump was. "Do what is right, let the consequence follow," Romney replied, citing a favorite hymn. He believed Trump was guilty of abuse of power and that he should be removed from office -- so he had to follow his conscience.
"Nobody should doubt this was his deeply held belief," Wallace observed.
I believe Romney. I just wonder where his conscience was when he tried to get into Trump's Cabinet and when he accepted Trump's endorsement in 2018. (OK, maybe Romney thought he could do good things to steady Trump's ship of state as Trump's top diplomat, but accepting Trump's endorsement two years later for a Senate seat? Please.)
Wallace was agog about how "lonely" Romney will be. After all, the conservative confab CPAC disinvited Romney from its convention later this month.
Yes, it's going to be very lonely as establishment Washington hails Romney for his rectitude and looks down the nose at those grubby Republicans who didn't stand up to Trump because they lacked the courage. It doesn't occur to swamp denizens that there actually were reasons to vote against removing Trump.
Such as the punishment doesn't fit the crime or merit overturning the will of American voters.
There's a lesson in here somewhere.
Maybe it's that Trump's my-way-or-the-highway approach may make most Republicans hesitate before they cross him, or even so much as criticize him, for suggesting that the Ukrainian president dig up dirt on the Bidens. But Trump's willingness to bully any dissenters has a limitation.
It can't work with everyone.
Romney, 72, is not up for election until 2024. He may not want the job by then, and by 2024 opposing Trump may not hurt at the Utah ballot box. In the meantime, Romney will be living proof that a Republican with the right resources can stand up to Trump and survive.
He'll do more than survive. He'll thrive. Probably for the first time in his life, Romney will be the toast of Washington, not the guy who lost in 2012.
In a moment of triumph, Trump could have spared Romney the humiliation of practically begging for a seat at his table. And now the tables have turned.
All Romney did was confirm the distrust and anger of the electorate that gave Trump the White House in the first place. He confirmed their reasoning in doing so and harmed the political establishment even more.
Yes he got his revenge moment, just like McCain did with his Obomacare vote.. and spit in the face of the American voter and harmed America in doing so.. just like McCain before him.. because his ego was more important than this nation.
Mormons should be ashamed of themselves for putting this tool iinto the senate.
Romney: John Bolton must testify at the senate trial. I want to hear what John Bolton has to say.
Yep, been pushing that since December, and when it looked like no witnesses were coming, suddenly the New York Times gets a leak about what an upcoming book (March 17th release) might say on the topic.
There’s no question in my mind he’s got something cooked up with Bolton. And no question that he’s working with liberals to see it come to fruition. After all, if, somehow, he can actually damage Trump, what is the GOP going to do? My guess is that he assumes that they’ll turn to the previous nominee, someone who has been a consistent voice in being critical of Trump, and the only Republican to vote to impeach...
Someone the swamp knows and loves.
People love to speculate about a coup attempt; sure, I’ll toss my speculation into the ring. Romney intends on damaging Trump with concocted scenarios and seize the nomination for himself, playing himself as ‘someone who can bring the entire nation together.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhx8e9j7r0w
But but, he invoked his faith and God. We all know that no scoundrel or wrongdoer has ever in the history of ever invoked God.
Saint Romney of Utah/Mass/Michigan is no exception.
Not the first time the mainstream media has venerated Romney. Remember how the fawned over him in the Republican primaries in 2012?
They will prop him up in his fights with fellow Republicans, then drop him like a hot potato when he's up against one of their guys.
Romney will never learn. He will carry the title "loser" his whole life, while Trump will be remembered as "successful two-term President."
I disagree with the conclusions of this article, but I would not call Debra J. Saunders a “ditzy hack”. She has been a lone at least mildly conservative voice on the San Francisco Chronicle since the Clinton years.
Who is that?
And now they despise Mitt Romney more than either of those two sh!t-bags.
If Mitt Romney ran for president he’s have a hard time getting even 100 electoral votes right now — because there are at least 8-10 states he won in 2012 that he’d lose today.
I have nothing but contempt for the voters of Utah — because when they elected Mitt Romney, they effectively gave one of their two Senate seats to Massachusetts.
Debra J. Saunders
Doesn’t everyone know that Romney has hatred in his heart about Trump?
“Romney is overwhelmed with jealousy.”
Something happened to him during the three debates he had with Zero. In the first debate he ‘steam rolled’ Obama. The next two, Mitts was his beotch. Someone got to him. IMHO
There are no provisions for recalling elected Federal politicians in any of the 50(7) States. Zero, zip, nada. Without a Constitutional Amendment there never will be, much like term limits.
It seems to me however she started much sooner and normally a conservative.
I’m not thinking he’d win in the slightest bit. Between all the GOP who’d stay home and whatnot, I think it’d be a cakewalk for someone else.
I am not discounting Romney’s hubris in thinking he could sweep in and win the presidency. He would believe he has a shot, so why not take all of them if he can?
Romney will go independent and be the VP pick at a brokered Dem convention.
Hillary is still in control of the DNC and awaiting her turn. Her or Michelle Obama.
No way they let the actual Dem voters pick their nominee from the seven losers left in the field.
Debra J. Saunders is the pen name of Pierre Delecto.
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