Cursed Tongue: Cruel Summer

Posted by CursedTongue on July 8, 2007

“It’s a cruel, cruel summer, strapping me here on the roof.” — Seamus

It’s no big deal that Mitt Romney strapped his faithful pooch to the roof of his car for a 12-hour road trip to Canada.

It was the 80s. Most of us were doing crazy things like riding sans safety restraints in the family station wagon, sporting big hair and listing to Bananarama. It was before the time of doggy day care, pooch patisseries and dog harness seat belts. It was 20 years ago.

Wait a minute. Didn’t we hear this defense somewhere before? Maybe about 7 or 8 years ago — when the aspiring Presidential candidate, George W. Bush, was caught with his hand on the open container, in a story that surfaced regarding a DUI offense in the 70s.

According to the article in The Boston Globe, Romney packed his wife, five boys, and luggage, into his white Caprice Classic station wagon with stylish wood paneling. He had strapped a kennel fitted with a homemade windshield to the roof of the car he called the White Whale. But the belly of the whale wasn’t big enough for the family’s Irish Setter, Seamus.

Apparently Seamus couldn’t wait to scrabble up into the kennel so that he could be battered by wind and the heat of summer for 12 hours, suffer a bought of diarrhea (From dehydration, perhaps?) and then to be unceremoniously hosed off.

The story was not sludge dredged up by the any of the many other Presidential hopefuls. Romney told this story to Globe reporters. They labeled the anecdote as an example of his infamous, “emotion-free crisis management.”

Romney feels that PETA was already a detractor of his. Cooley managing the “Seamusgate” crisis he spoke to reporters at the Globe again, saying, “PETA was after me for having a rodeo at the Olympics and was very, very upset about that. PETA was after me when I went quail hunting in Georgia. And they’re not happy that my dog likes fresh air.”

If fresh air at 60 mph is so great, I want to know why he didn’t put one of his boys on top of the car for 12 hours. He has five of them. He only had one dog at the time.

The statute of limitations has expired on any charges that could have been brought against Romney. There is no statute of limitations on the value of these glimpses into the character of a Presidential candidate. Especially when the candidate offered the story up as an example of his management style.

I think the troops have been strapped to the roof of Bush’s White Elephant war-mobile and hosed for long enough. The last thing they need is another leader missing any modicum of what non-sociopaths like to call “compassion.” Although, I think being humane, and being a viable Presidential candidate may be mutually exclusive states of existence.

- Sarah Letnes

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Tags: humor, pets, politics

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