I don’t know exactly why Mitt Romney decided to travel abroad in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention next month. I suppose it’s a box that a prospective nominee is supposed to check. But, if he wanted to reassure Americans that he has the diplomatic skills to be president, he’s already failed the test. Perhaps he can’t be blamed too much for the racist comments of one his staffers who suggested that the president doesn’t understand U.S./U.K. relations because he isn’t 100% Anglo-Saxon. But he has to take the full measure of blame for offending Britian’s prime minister so thoroughly that he felt the need to insult Mitt Romney in return, as well as the state of Utah, the Salt Lake City community, and (by implication) the Mormon religion.
After Romney questioned the security preparations for the Olympic Games, he received the following rebuke:
[Prime Minister David] Cameron also fired back at Romney’s concerns over security, and suggested British officials were dealing with more complex issues than Romney faced when he ran the show. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron said. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”
That is a stinging rejoinder and it’s amazing that David Cameron was so furious that he would be completely dismissive of the city that houses the Salt Lake Temple, the spiritual home of Mormonism.
And that’s not the only comment that aroused the ire of the prime minister. Romney also questioned whether the British would unite enough to have a successful Olympics. Cameron responded:
“You’re going to see beyond doubt that Britain can deliver,” Mr Cameron said. “We’ve delivered this incredible Olympic Park on time, on budget and in real style.”
The Guardian is brutalizing Mitt with snark. Here’s an example that accompanies a picture of Romney meeting with Cameron:
Lacking a transcript of the private meeting between the American candidate and the British leader, we rely on the candidate’s remarks after the meeting to relay to you that in the picture below Mitt Romney is telling David Cameron that while prospects for peace in the Middle East appear slim, they frankly have a better chance of pulling it off than London does of hosting an Olympics not historically disastrous, and so his, Romney’s, recommendation would be that Cameron get MI6 involved, which if Cameron wants he can tell the world press assembled right outside about after they’re through.
The MI6 reference involves Romney’s decision to reveal that he had just met with the head of the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service. That’s a no-no in British culture.
At this rate, he’ll go to Warsaw and ask how many Poles it takes to screw in a lightbulb, and then discuss money-grubbing with Netanyahu in Israel.
