February 10, 2012

It's always kind of fun when you read about things in your morning paper you didn't expect.  Today's Washington Post has a fine example – a story from Beijing:   "Speculation grows over Chinese official's mysterious visit to U.S. Consulate."  No idea what the dude was doing. On the other hand it may be even more fun when the morning paper agrees with you.  Another example from today's Post – this one on the front page:  "Romney stuck in lukewarm, advisors fear."  This retired political reporter has felt just that way for some time now.  No idea what the dude is doing. I don't know what it is about Romney.  A line I've used about him before is Gertrude Stein's, "There is no there there."  I'd hate to have to explain exactly what she meant but I bet you get the general idea.  His father, who was governor of Michigan some years ago and an unsuccessful presidential candidate, never seemed to me to have much "there there" either. This column, it occurs to me, owes at least some of you an apology.  Last time it cheerfully predicted that Rick Santorum wouldn't win any of the three states in play on Tuesday.  Well, he won all three further scattering Republicans' search for a "there" all over the political landscape.  Oh, well…"nobody said it was going to be easy, and nobody was right." *    * George H.W. Bush