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<div class="timestamp">July 31, 2012</div>
<h1>Gadding of a Gawky Gowk</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/maureendowd/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by MAUREEN DOWD">MAUREEN DOWD</a></span></h6>
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<p>
WASHINGTON </p>
<p>
Remember when Janice Soprano shot her fiance to death after he punched
her in the mouth? Then she calls Tony to come over and help her. He mops
up the blood and has his thugs chop up the body. </p>
<p>
“All in all, though,” Tony tells his sister sincerely, as he drops her at the bus station, “it was a pretty good visit.” </p>
<p>
By Sopranos standards, all in all, Mitt Romney had a pretty good visit
overseas. But by political standards, it was more like Munch’s “The
Scream.” </p>
<p>
When Barack Obama went abroad in July 2008, searching for some foreign
policy cred, European leaders smothered him with love and respect.
</p>
<p>
More than 200,000 Germans thronged to the Victory Column in Berlin,
hailing him as “Redeemer” and “Savior.” In a joint press conference in
Paris, a smitten Nicolas Sarkozy was so touchy-feely that even Obama
looked a little embarrassed. </p>
<p>
“You must want a cigarette after that,” I teased Obama on the plane to London later. </p>
<p>
Poor Mitt Romney had no such magic carpet ride. He insulted the British
and infuriated the Palestinians while pandering to the Israelis and
American Jewish voters, including donors like the Las Vegas billionaire
Sheldon Adelson who tagged along. </p>
<p>
Egged on by some of the same neocon advisers who brought us the Iraq
pre-emptive invasion, Romney offered “Go ahead, make my day” diplomacy,
signaling he would support Israeli action to pre-emptively strike Iran’s
nuclear facilities. </p>
<p>
In an inadvertently hilarious grand finale in Warsaw, where Romney was
pandering to American Catholics by dropping Pope John Paul II’s name
every chance he got, his spokesman insulted the traveling press
clamoring for a rare dollop of attention from the Republican contender.
</p>
<p>
Obama gave four press conferences and plenty of individual interviews
when he went abroad as a candidate. But when reporters traveling with
Romney mutinied as Mitt left a wreath-laying at a war memorial in
Pilsudski Square, pressing on the gaffes and on why they were being shut
out, campaign spokesman Rick Gorka shot back crudely that the press
should kiss a part of his anatomy, noting incongruously: “This is a holy
site for the Polish people. Show some respect.” </p>
<p>
Indeed. </p>
<p>
The true measure of how inglorious the trip was? Senior Romney
strategist Stuart Stevens assured the press how glorious the trip was.
</p>
<p>
He took the cascade of chuckleheaded moments and tried to plant the
crazy idea in our brains that they were a mark of Romney’s steadfast
character. </p>
<p>
“He has a tendency to speak his mind and to say what he believes,”
Stevens said, “and whenever you do that, there will be those that
disagree with you, and there will be those that agree with you.” </p>
<p>
Romney himself tried the same silly spin with ABC News, telling David
Muir when asked about the damaging headlines: “You know, I tend to tell
people what I actually believe, and referring to the comments that were
made in the media is something which I felt was an honest reflection of
what was being concerned, or what was concerning folks.” </p>
<p>
That quote is alarming on two levels: First, Romney never seems to say
what he actually believes, and, second, he doesn’t seem to actually
speak English. </p>
<p>
Mitt’s foray showed some new colors, as he intended, but they were not
flattering ones. We now know how little he knows about the world, how
really slow on his feet he is, what meager social and political agility
he has. </p>
<p>
Wherever he went, whatever situation he was in, he remained frozen in
himself. It was reminiscent of the stinging review of an Oscar Wilde
lecture by Ambrose Bierce, who wrote that Wilde was a “gawky gowk” who
“wanders about posing as a statue of himself.” </p>
<p>
The odd odyssey underscored Mitt’s off-putting mix of opacity and
insularity. Weren’t American elites once more worldly, like the Kennedys
and the Harrimans? Romney was in the forefront of a revolution in
American finance, he was the governor of an important state and he was
an elder in the Mormon Church. But that’s all the stuff he doesn’t want
to talk about, so we’re left with a narrow spokesmodel, banally handsome
with an empty look; not like President Obama and Bill Clinton, where
you always see the brain whirring behind the eyes. </p>
<p>
Barack Obama created a character called Barack Obama, a remote, superior
sort who comes down from the mountaintop during campaigns to assure us
that he’s just like us. </p>
<p>
Romney is not on the mountaintop. He’s here, mingling among us, present but absent. A fence wrapped around a wall. </p>
<p>
Stuart Stevens is right when he says it’s easy to imagine Romney in the
White House. I can visualize him right now, lapidary and frozen, in the
Rose Garden. A statue of himself. </p>
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