Brian M Downing
I’ve followed the campaign since it began an hour or two after Obama was sworn in. I’ve read the papers, seen the primary debates, and talked to friends, except for the ones who are diehard believers in one of our dollar-store parties. Tthere’s only one candidate out there I can support. To paraphrase Archie Bunker: Mister, we could use a man like George Romney today.
Yes, George Romney, the former car executive from a day when US auto manufacturers made money, didn’t outsource everything they could to foreign countries, and could express their salaries vis-a-vis the average worker’s without using exponents. Yes, George Romney, the man who might have won the ’68 GOP primary, gone on to win the White House, and spared us all a lot of embarrassment. I just can’t see him hiring people to burgle the Watergate – let alone hiring people like G Gordon Liddy.
But Romney the Elder made a critical mistake in his presidential run. He told the truth. Romney spoke candidly about being misled by the military while on a tour of Southeast Asia: “When I came back from Viet Nam, I’d just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get.”
This may strike many as innocuous, perhaps even banal, but that remark destroyed a promising candidacy. It wasn’t just the matter of changing his mind, though that’s taboo in American public life. Romney the Wiser compounded his error by revealing a dark secret: he, and large swathes of the public as well, can be readily conned by guys in uniforms who give crisp reports, have firm handshakes, and speak without blinking their eyes. Romney had gone to Vietnam and been accorded a tour put on by the military. They showed him happy villagers and intrepid ARVN soldiers and reams of statistics and rows of helicopters and confident GIs flushed with victory. In short, he got brainwashed.
The beat goes on. A colonel taking a member of congress around Afghanistan today is a lot like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy showing the newly-arrived Jon Voigt around New York. “Hey Joe, I want to set you up in business with Mr Karzai.” A less ethical guide could get the politician to build a bridge in Kabul or invest in a pipeline into Pakistan. It could happen. Really. Those guys are like Ron Popeil with firearms and medals.
Romney the Wiser did more than question the premises of the war. He threatened to undermine the foundations of the modern US by challenging faith in guys in uniforms – or in upmarket suits – who give crisp reports, have firm handshakes, and speak without blinking. This would have plunged the country into an abyss of circumspection and independent thinking that would undermine everything we’ve been conned into holding sacred. Let me offer a few examples.
We might not have trusted mortgage companies that assured people of modest means that they could afford $500,000 houses.
We might not have trusted think tanks that predicted foreign countries would greet our troops as liberators, or that we could bring a modern economy and government to Afghanistan within a century or two.
We might not have trusted investment bankers who created rafts of derivatives with putative values exceeding the GDPs of all the nations of the world combined. NB that these guys wear really upmarket suits – <i>Oxxford</i> suits. That ain’t no typo, despite what my spellchecker says.
We might not have trusted smiling MDs who confidently told us that our loved one did not have a tumor then after four months of pointless treatment told us that reading CT scans can be tricky. Doctors prefer Brioni suits. So did John Gotti.
We might not have trusted public figures who claimed they could restore family values, balance the budget, achieve full employment, end oil imports, and return the Washington Redskins to glory.
Romney the Wiser was trying to tell us back in 1967 that we’re all subject to con jobs and that a discerning mind was needed to help cut through the cons that have been heaped on us since the dawn of television, when the ability to con began to ruthlessly supplant clear thinking. For this grievous offense, he was voted off the primaries. Good grief, these people in uniforms and suits now have a horrific weapon that Romney the Wiser couldn’t have imagined – PowerPoint.
©2012 Brian M Downing