Dear Ann

March 4, 2013

Ann Lois Romney
Charities, Horseshows, and Charity Horseshows, LLC.
Utah, USA

Dear Ann:

I don't wish to be snarky with you. Really. There are plenty of professional comedians for whom you types are both Bread and Butter, and far be it for me to steal another's sustenance. (I am a poor man, and so can afford to be reasonably honest.) Rather, I have two pieces of advice for you (three if you count "Please, please, please run for the Senate"), and this brings up the first. Maybe you could try to gain a little self-awareness. Talking to an entire nation as if you were speaking to The Help is inexcusable. Hell, it's inexcusable with The Help, Ann. And you know it. What I think you do not realize--you're a cosseted woman, Ann--is that the President of the United States is the president of all its citizens. Including the unsightly, the unpleasant, and the less than profitable, many who, in return, don't give a shit about your tap-dancing horse. And here's the thing, Ann: it was incumbent, you should pardon the expression, upon you to understand them. At least a little. The only skin the Poor have in the game is their own, ma'am.

And it's not that hard; every wealthy person in America who isn't wholly wedded to Wealth (and there are a few, but not as many as would self-identify) can do it. Human empathy. Human empathy that takes the extra step to understand, precisely because it does so from the "superior", or comfortable, position. Let alone from that required of a First Lady. Were you intending to fake it, or is there some There inside you which was somehow buried during the campaign? Great convention speech, by the way. I'm sure the Bay State would enjoy two or three a day between now and the end of June. Y'know, and get to know the real You.

Could I just mention something I held back during the Recent Unpleasantness out of civility, first, and also because I think you're too shallow, too self-obsessed, and too inconsequential to bother much with? I was born during the first Eisenhower administration, and despite the slow start there've actually been a greater number of impressive First Ladies in my lifetime than Presidents. Michelle Obama's a good one. Maybe you two girls should get together some time and swap stories about what crap Life and The Media have thrown at you. Roselyn Carter and Betty Ford. Lady Bird. Jackie. That's five more than there have been really good Presidents. I'll leave out Hillary if you'll agree I can leave out the Bush women and Nancy Reagan to save myself typing. Except to note that two of those were horrible human beings, and the other killed a man.

You weren't going to improve the list, Ann. I'm sorry, it's a harsh judgement. But it's irrespective of politics (although yours aren't particularly helpful, Ann. What was your theme gonna be? Reading? The Awful Media? Improving the Quality of our Culinary Education?).

The second thing, Ann, is that your husband was treated with kid gloves in the campaign. Yeah, some of them were used to punch him--there's a whole internet out there beyond Pinterest, Ann--but the networks handled him pretty fairly overall.

Well to me, anyway; in your interview you noted that We All see bias against us when we look at Media coverage. You were laughing when you said "Happy to blame the Media". I wanted to give you the benefit of every doubt there, Ann. Your pull quotes started getting splashed around, not too flatteringly, and I made a point of listening to you, twice through. Some of what you said is getting overblown. That's the breaks. You want to chair Failed Candidates' Wives for Media Accuracy go right ahead.

But your attitude is clear, Ann. Standard Republican/Wealthy Person political chitchat and personal aggrandizement. You ha-ha are happy ha-ha to blame the Media, but the fact is that you blame the Media. At least in part. At the very least to the extent that a Republican insider thinks so. Human nature assisted by four decades of Media-bashing victimhood on the Right. Ha ha. Got it.

The campaign controlled access. The campaign took Mormonism off the table. The Media, on the other hand, gave you lotsa free airtime to spread your positive message about your Very Special Husband. Maybe you could'a done a little better job. Yes, I know. I'm fired.

And Your Very Special Husband chose the message. He chose to flip out of his flops in 2008, and since then he'd gone in for some Serious pandering. You aren't exempt from responsibility for those things, just because you're wealthy. Wealth just makes it seem that way to you.

Your V.S.H. was roughed up a lot more by his fellow "Presidential" Republicans than by those awful Chicago people. Not to mention him blowing several toes off each foot all by himself. He wasn't liked by the dominant wing, or "wing", of his own party. Did he ever run in first place in the polls,before his Last Challenger Standing (I don't remember, now. Gingrich? Santorum? Cheney?) gave up the ghost? He's lucky Huckabee didn't run. Do you all think Huckabee would'a kicked Mitt's ass? I do. Huckabee could'a come in like Perry did, all gangbusters from the Guns 'n' Jesus wing (or "wing"), only he wouldn't'a stepped on his dick. Not right away, anyhow. Huckabee commanded the seas to part and people to eat chicken sandwiches. Your guy tried to convince half the population to stay home. Your Man trailed, at points, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Donald Fucking Trump. He'd have only beaten Mitch Fucking Daniels by a hair. Your Man is a dud. May or may not be a great guy, personally, and probably is a good neighbor, at least until your landscaping man mows the lawn in a pattern not approved by the Homeowners' Association. You lost. Please do not, ever again, go on the teevee to talk about how truly great this country would be if only voters had been 7% smarter.

Please do not let the word "Sequester" exit your lips in public. Ever again. Unless that's the name of some dressage move.

Show-off campaigns that manipulate the Media have been around a long time, Ann. Longer than your husband's political career. Farther back, even, than the days you ate dinner off that ironing board. Don't gripe about it now. Really. The woman whose husband was a painstakingly-constructed, and awful, candidate for the role of The Politician in some Utah-financed classroom film should be the last person to complain about how the Media portrays things.

I liked getting to know the two of you better, though. More personal, somehow. Hey, maybe you could prevail upon Willard to do this every year. The Imaginary State of the Union Under the Romneys?

Yours in civility,

J.B.S. Riley