Mittens Goes to Israel

So Mittens needed a “breakout moment in Israel to salvage foreign trip,” WaPo says. So far, his breakout has been to piss off the press.

Romney’s campaign announced Saturday that it would block the news media from covering the event, which will be held at the King David Hotel. The campaign’s decision to close the fundraiser to the press violates the ground rules it negotiated with news organizations in April, when Romney wrapped up the Republican nomination and began opening some of his finance events to the news media.

Under the agreement, a pool of wire, print and television reporters can cover every Romney fundraiser held in public venues, including hotels and country clubs. The campaign does not allow media coverage of fundraisers held in private residences.

It is speculated that Mittens intends to badmouth President Obama, which he said he would not do while on foreign soil. But truth is he doesn’t have anything else to campaign on. And there are other complications:

The fund-raiser may be especially delicate for Mr. Romney because of the attendance of Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate who has pledged to spend some $100 million this election to help defeat President Obama, as well as elect Republicans. Though Mr. Adelson first supported Newt Gingrich during the early nominating contests because of his strong support for Israel, he has since thrown his support behind Mr. Romney. Mr. Adelson and his wife recently gave $5 million to a pro-Romney “super PAC.” He flew over to Jerusalem for the weekend to attend the event.

Mr. Romney seems to be taking pains to keep the fund-raiser under wraps. Typically, a small pool of reporters is allowed into fund-raisers held in public locations, in order to provide a written report on Mr. Romney’s remarks. Though there have been a few occasions when the campaign has tried to limit access — citing an especially small venue or the fact that Mr. Romney was not giving formal remarks — this is the first time that a public fund-raiser has been closed without any explanation.

This is no way to run a presidential campaign.

Mitt’s Magical Mystery Tour Continues

So Mittens is on his way to Israel — may be there by now, actually — and is looking forward to meeting with his BFF Bibi Netanyahu. It’s an odd one-way friendship, however, as Bibi says he barely knows Mittens. See also Kevin Drum — Bibi might not be inclined to go out of his way to make Mitten’s visit a success.

All sorts of odd little anecdotes about Mittens have been surfacing lately, including the one in which he offered a barista the remainder of his cocoa instead of a tip.

Then there was the time he went to China to look presidential and stumbled over basic geopolitical questions. And finally, the offensive charm offensive in London, in which he insulted the Brits and dissed his wife’s Olympic horse.

And I’m saying this level of cluelessness is not about having an off day. It speaks to basic levels of character and socialization that might have been corrected if caught before Mitt was eight years old or so. But not now.

Really, it clarifies the dog-on-the-roof episode. Mittens appears to be incapable of empathy with other human beings, never mind the poor dog.

Jonathan Chait notes that Mittens seems to be at his worst “when Romney is trying to ingratiate himself with somebody, yet can’t help but point out that their standards of excellence don’t rise to his own. Sucking up to people is just a completely unnatural act for him.”

Fred Kaplan goes further, explaining,

The American capitalists-turned-statesmen of an earlier generation—Douglas Dillon, Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze—took risks, built institutions, helped rebuild postwar Europe, befriended their foreign counterparts: in short, they cultivated an internationalist sensibility at their core. Whatever you think of their politics or Cold War policies generally (and there is much to criticize), financiers formed an American political elite in that era because finance (through the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, the IMF, and so forth) was so often the vehicle of American expansionism.

By contrast, private-equity firms, such as Bain Capital, where Romney made his fortune, tend to view their client companies as cash cows, susceptible to cookie-cutter formulas from which the firms’ partners reap lavish fees, almost regardless of the outcome. Their ends and means breed an insularity, a sense of entitlement, a disposition to view all the world’s entities through a single prism and to appraise them along a single scale.

I’ve had to deal with big-shot executives who were close to being idiot savants; outside of the narrow world of whatever they did to make money, they actually were rather stupid. But because they were alpha male types and powerful enough to be insulated from being called out for mistakes, they had no inkling of their own limitations. They thought they were brilliant at everything. You could put them in a room with, say, Stephen Hawking, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, and these big-shot executives would dominate the conversation, because (they think) no one else but them actually understands the world. But in truth, they don’t understand much of anything.

The more I see of Romney, the more he seems to be of the same type.

Tampa Prepares for the GOP

No, not with bullet-proof vests. The strip clubs are getting prepped for the Republican National Convention:

Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far.

“Hands down, it was Republicans,” she said. “The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

As further evidence of the clubs’ nonpartisan appeal, Don Kleinhans, the owner of the 2001 Odyssey, said when the Promise Keepers, a male evangelical group, came to town years ago, business was rollicking.

“We had phenomenal numbers all weekend, and they walked in wearing badges and name tags and weren’t shy at all,” he said.

Why am I not surprised? BTW, the headliner at one Tampa club will be a “dead ringer” for Sarah Palin, the club owner said.