The Anger Blog, A Terrible Analogy

A Terrible Analogy. Mitt Romney again shows us how he has no perspective of the real world outside of his cozy, privileged lifestyle. During a recent campaign event (immediately after Hurricane Sandy had decimated the East Coast), he was espousing how we must all come together and assist one another in times of crisis. He was of course referring to the aftermath of this monster storm and the responsibility of individual concerned citizens as well as local church groups and community organizations, but not exactly that of the government, to help our neighbors and fellow Americans who had been affected.

The statements of Governor Romney might have seemed highly commendable, if it weren't for the analogy he used to get his point across (and this is where the disgust and anger comes in). He likened the situation to a high school football game that he had attended as a student. According to Romney, when the game was over, there was a good amount of debris left on the field. He and some fellow students asked an adult in charge how they could help to clean up the area. They were told that, if each of them should take a "lane" consisting of a ten-yard section of the field, and walk across the field, picking up the debris in his lane, it would not be so daunting a task.

There are two things about this analogy that anger me. Comparing clean-up after a high school football game to the complex job of dealing with widespread and myriad problems created by Hurricane Sandy is a sick joke. Secondly, I feel that the analogy he used is one that he just concocted and has little basis in reality. How many high school football games have you attended where the field was covered with debris after the game? In my day at least, we used to clean up in the seating area, but usually the field was almost litter free. If my assumption is wrong, however, and that field at Mr. Romney's elite private school did need attention, I have a hard time imagining Mitt, in his prep days, volunteering for such menial labor. I guess it's possible that he was required to do this, as community service for his part in the bullying incident wherein he forcibly held a classmate down on the floor and cut off his hair. What do you think?