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.
And the reason he lost the Presidency shows....he was out for himself...People be damned.
Barf!! Burisma Romney is now under the same scrutiny as Biden is. His antics have only raised greater suspicion about him. A large majority of voters from Utah hate him and are looking to recall him. Romney will find out that trouble is going to come to him from many directions!
RINOmney is a very little person.
This is typical of the leftist media. Highlight one person and ignore the other 52 who voted to acquit.
The leftist media (which includes many writers who write for seemingly conservative organizations) are you enemy, folks.
Never trust them.
JoMa
Read my lips...Read my lips, Read my lips. Mitt Romney is politically dead, finished, toast, no burnt toast!!! He destroyed himself...his little game is over!!! Go Trumpie!!! Case Closed!!!
“...swamp meat...”. Priceless!
he accepted Trump’s endorsement in 2018 when he ran for Senate in Utah.
—
Wow, that sure was big of him. How magnanimous
He also accepted campaign contributions from conservatives, who he secretly hated and planned on stabbing in the back.
What an expansive guy.
Secret, illegal war in Ukraine, Billions missing. Romney is irrelevant. A nobody.
Attention whore. Look whose name is in the headlines..
+100!! He is meat that is about to get charred by a flamethrower!!
Well...maybe not.
Gee Debra, Romney humiliated trump first when he refused to endorse him. I would say the Romney was a fool to believe he would be picked for a cabinet position in the Trump Administration to begin with. You see, your argument works in both directions, but you chose instead to make it purely a one-way street, traveled only by President trump. Romney may thrive, but only if the swamp survives.
Romney is a back stabbing swamp snake. The man has zero core principles and zero honor.
He sure is.
He wouldn’t have made Senator in 2018 if Trump hadn’t endorsed him. He knows that. Willard. The backstabbing rat.
Reminds me of the Bushes who always courted conservatives at election time. When he lost and was leaving office, George Sr. told his speechwriter, John Podhoretz, that “I don’t want any of that conservative junk in my farewell speech” which is why the fool had to give a farewell speech after one term. Of course not, they, Paul Ryan, Romney and the rest of the establishment types don’t want to be associated with us because they really don’t believe what we do. Yet, we get stuck with disasters they engineered like Afghanistan and Iraq2.
I wish Romney and John Kerry would book a bicycle tour of France and start a blog.or a hot air balloon tour of the world.
You had to mention Ryano. I almost forgot about that swamp creature.
When did Townhall start letting ditzy hacks write articles?
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