{"id":769,"date":"2012-05-20T22:37:38","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T22:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=769"},"modified":"2013-02-21T22:41:23","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T22:41:23","slug":"the-obama-romney-doggy-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-romney-doggy-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obama-Romney Doggy Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0ran a piece on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s high-school years, in which he supposedly was cruel to a shy, perhaps gay fellow student. The piece,\u00a0mirabile dictu<\/em>, appeared in the middle of the Biden-Obama reversal on gay marriage. Errors were spotted almost as soon as it was published, and the essay was summarily denounced as nonfactual by the family of the supposed victim of Romney\u2019s supposed half-century-old callousness.<\/p>\n

Of more interest was the reaction to the story. Aside from Romney\u2019s gracious acknowledgment that he might have done something in his teens that he was not proud of (although he could not remember the\u00a0Post\u2019<\/em>s hazing incident), and aside from the errors of fact pointed out in the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0story, apparent Romney supporters hit back hard \u2014 and in equally trivial fashion. If Romney was an insensitive preppie, well then, so was Obama \u2014 and for the matter, we had the punkish young Joe Biden. Almost immediately, all over the Internet, Obama\u2019s own voice was heard reading from\u00a0Dreams from My Father<\/a><\/em>\u00a0about his ancient drug use while in prep school, and about earlier unkind treatment of a middle-school girl chum. If high school is fair game in these doggy wars, then why not seventh and eighth grade?<\/p>\n

For a year, we had heard from the liberal media the old tale of Seamus the dog, as a sort of Aesop\u2019s fable warning about Mitt Romney\u2019s innate cruelty. You see, on a family vacation, Romney in purportedly callous fashion put the family dog, Seamus, into a custom carrier on top of the family car. Forget about America borrowing $5 trillion in three years; worry instead about a dog on a car roof three decades ago.<\/p>\n

But after yet another serial telling, suddenly the Romney supporters fought back: If Romney had confessed to putting the dog out like a masthead to the winds, Obama in his memoirs confessed to\u00a0eating<\/em>\u00a0dogs! In short order, the Internet was flooded with Photoshopped images of cynophagia \u2014 as Obama munched on dachshund sandwiches and terrier burgers. I guess the point was that Americans would prefer putting Spot on top of the car to eating him.<\/p>\n

The same trump had earlier happened with the \u201cwar against women.\u201d Team Obama saw an opening with Rush Limbaugh\u2019s crude \u201cslut\u201d putdown of Sandra Fluke \u2014 for which he later apologized \u2014 and attempted to inflate the slur as something emblematic of right-wing misogyny. But again it was not to be.<\/p>\n

Limbaugh apologized; Limbaugh did not give money to the Romney campaign and indeed opposed his nomination in the primaries; and Limbaugh\u2019s slur at least could be printed in family newspapers \u2014 in contrast to liberal Bill Maher\u2019s. The latter\u2019s profanity-laced and misogynistic sick rants against conservative women could not be quoted without dashes and asterisks. He never apologized. And he gave the Obama campaign $1 million in contributions. The desperate comeback of Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen that Ann Romney \u2014 a cancer and MS survivor and mother of five \u2014 had \u201cnever worked\u201d (a point the odious Maher seconded) only made things worse, before this chapter of the doggy war was apparently called off by those who started it.<\/p>\n

There have been more of these tit-for-tat, na-na na-na na-na doggy wars \u2014 with charges ranging from patrimonial polygamy to prep-school privilege \u2014 but you get the picture. So what can we learn from them, aside from the obvious fact that Barack Obama prefers not to talk about 40 months of 8 percent-plus unemployment, 1.7 percent GDP growth, $5 trillion in new debt, $4-a-gallon gas, and Obamacare?<\/p>\n

Team Obama usually starts the exchange, either to distract from dismal economic news, or in zeal to portray Romney as aristocratic and out of touch \u2014 but without careful thinking about what the inevitable Romney rebuttal might look like.<\/p>\n

The Romney people apparently will not run a repeat of McCain\u2019s 2008 campaign, in which the candidate put such petty retaliation off limits. There will be no sanctimonious putdowns from Romney about dredging up Obama\u2019s dog-eating past, in the manner in which McCain lectured his supporters about the inappropriateness of emphasizing the tripartite name Barack Hussein Obama \u2014 although Obama himself did, and would go on to focus on his middle name as proof of his multicultural resonance abroad. Just as Bill Clinton\u2019s war room swore not to do a rerun of Mike Dukakis\u2019s punching-bag 1988 campaign, so Romney apparently has determined not to repeat the McCain one-hand-tied-behind-the-back model.<\/p>\n

In other words, each time we hear of an irrelevant hit on Romney, we will probably hear of something equally irrelevant \u2014 and worse \u2014 about Obama, in a way we never would have in 2008. Petty? A distraction from the failing economy? Of course, but the Romney people apparently believe that they must and will achieve deterrence by replying in kind and to such a degree that Team Obama will soon cease playing such a childish game of taunts.<\/p>\n

But there is another, more interesting lesson from the doggy wars. These disclosures are supposed to emphasize the haughty, privileged upbringing and past of Mitt Romney: prep-school bully and homophobe, greedy financier, control-freak dad, and a thin happy-face veneer atop the vast hateful right-wing hit machine beneath. But, in truth, the contemporary Democratic party is no longer the old coalition of farmers, union workers, miners, and the lower middle class, but is run by the very wealthy. And so when the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0wished to emphasize Romney\u2019s privileged prep school, did it not realize that Obama likewise went to a tony prep school? Does anyone believe hip left-wing Hollywood celebrities are less profane than talk-radio hosts? Does the present-day Democratic party not hinge on gift-giving from Wall Street, Hollywood, and academia? How can Obama supporters go after Bain Capital and yet hold their convention in Bank of America Stadium? Is Jon Corzine any less venal than was Ken Lay?<\/p>\n

The tit-for-tat trivia wars were a bad idea for the Democrats in another sense as well. As we saw from the Republican primary campaign \u2014 especially the various hit pieces on the pasts of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain \u2014 in today\u2019s postmodern society of rampant drinking, womanizing, drug use, and shady financial deals, almost no one is above suspicion \u2014 but some are far less so than others. Liberals will mock Mormonism, but the doctrinaire avoidance of adultery, alcohol, tea, coffee, drugs, and nicotine is a political handler\u2019s dream. In other words, to find run-of-the-mill dirt on Mitt Romney is going to be almost impossible, which explains why we are reduced to psychodramatic tales about a dog, Rush Limbaugh, and a 50-year-old regrettable prank.<\/p>\n

Is the reverse true? Most incumbent presidents should have been fully vetted after nearly four years in office. But for a variety of obvious reasons, Barack Obama never was. He wrote two memoirs, one at a time when the impulse was to earn his advance through candor, not to offer the usual mush to protect a long-standing national political career. The result is that there are scads of things in Obama\u2019s own first memoir (which now come over the Internet in his own voice) that were never cited in 2008, but most certainly can be in 2012.<\/p>\n

After all, just because the media decided that they could destroy George W. Bush in 2000 with proof of a DUI or an admission of coke usage, or in 2004 with supposed lax attendance in the Texas Air National Guard, or Rick Perry in 2012 with graffiti on a rock, that does not mean that Obama\u2019s exemption from commensurate scrutiny is always assured, especially since Obama himself has written about common drug use, drinking, and slothful attendance, and many of his earlier associates \u2014 Frank Marshall Davis, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, the Rev. James T. Meeks, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright \u2014 were criminals or unhinged or sometimes both.<\/p>\n

In sum, why would the Left try disreputable means to vet a mostly staid Mitt Romney, when Obama himself has bandied about a colorful past that could supply endless rebuttal and countercharges?<\/p>\n

So can we at least hope to see an end to these stupid doggy stories? I doubt it.<\/p>\n

Quite the opposite: We will probably hear leaks about an undisclosed Romney ailment \u2014 only to wonder why Obama, alone of major candidates in recent decades, has never released his medical records. We should expect to hear that Romney got a B or C in some college course \u2014 only to remind us that Obama, alone of major candidates, does not want anyone looking at his college transcripts. Do we really wish to hear how an admitted prep-school serial use of beer, marijuana, and occasional coke, and a history of skipped classes, translated into admission into Occidental and then Columbia? We will hear another 19th-century Romney family polygamy story only to be reminded of a 20th-century Obama counterpart. We will be lectured about a fiery Mormon bishop only to hear it trumped by another racist rant from Jeremiah Wright.<\/p>\n

That so far the Obama campaign\u2019s trivial pursuit has always backfired hardly suggests that it will stop \u2014 especially as the economy continues to sputter. For the true believers who run Obama\u2019s campaign, their messianic leader could not possibly have feet of clay \u2014 and so they seem shocked each time they find yet another new way of letting the nation see that he does.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last week the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0ran a piece on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s high-school years, in which he supposedly was cruel to a shy, perhaps gay fellow student.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96],"tags":[12,165,280,274,1044,32,336,40],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-cp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/romney-fights-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":0},"title":"Romney Fights Back","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Mitt Romney was recently derided by the Obama campaign for his appearance with Donald Trump. Trump is supposed to be radioactive because of his stubborn insistence that the Obama birth certificate is inauthentic. Romney\u2019s supporters, however, ignored the complaint and pointed instead to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-the-hare-romney-the-tortoise\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":1},"title":"Obama the Hare, Romney the Tortoise","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The 2012 race has turned into one of Aesop's classic fables. 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Last night\u2019s debate clarified the stark choice facing American voters on November 6. On the one hand, we heard a candidate who endorses limited\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1360,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/romney-the-castor-oil-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":3},"title":"Romney: The Castor-Oil Candidate","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Nominating Mitt Romney is sort of like taking Grandma\u2019s castor oil. Republicans are dreading the thought of downing their unpleasant-tasting medicine but worry that sooner or later they will have to. By any logical political calculus, the former Massachusetts governor is an ideal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1306,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-does-romney-really-think-about-vietnam\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":4},"title":"What Does Romney Really Think About Vietnam?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Mitt Romney recently said\u00a0something\u00a0on\u00a0Fox News Sunday\u00a0that raises questions about his understanding of history and its pertinence for foreign policy. In the course of talking about the war in Iraq and the \u201clessons learned\u201d from that conflict and its \u201cerrors,\u201d Romney responded to a question\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-face-of-things-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":5},"title":"The Face of Things to Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Campaign Rhetoric The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}