Only The Right Kind Of People


Pretty slick, that Mitt Romney.    In Las Vegas on Tuesday, the former governor who will never admit he was governor told a crowd

I was speaking with one of these business owners who owns a couple of restaurants in town.And he said 'You know I'd like to change the Constitution, I'm not sure I can do it,' he said. 'I'd like to have a provision in the Constitution that in addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president being set by the Constitution, I'd like it also to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before he could become president of the United States.'    You see then he or she would understand that the policies they're putting in place have to encourage small business, make it easier for business to grow.

Romney will seize whatever opportunity there is to plant a seed of doubt into voters' minds about President Obama's birthplace.      He is especially eager if he does not have to leave his fingerprints- such as having Donald Trump do it for him or dropping an anecdote about "one of these business owners" reminding us there is "a provision in the Constitution" pertaining to "the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president."

But the candidate's remarks were notable also because of his advocacy (channeled through a restaurant owner) of limiting the opportunity to become president based on one's career.    You can grow up to be anything you want, parents traditionally told their children, even President of the United States.     But not, apparently, if you're a school bus driver, fundraiser for the Ford Foundation, a physician's assistant, orderly, or janitor at a community hospital,  teacher, nurse for the American Red Cross, police officer, or lobbyist for the NRA.       (The list is nearly endless; your selections, as with your mileage, may vary.)     Or not if you were the guy who out on a bombing mission was

Shot down, he plunged into a lake, was dragged out and set upon by a mob, which left him with three broken limbs. His captors threw him into the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison, tortured him, and left him to die in a cell with two other Americans, including the US Air Force's most decorated officer, Col Bud Gray.

ThinkProgress notes that the presidency would have been closed off to former Admiral John McCain, as it would have been to those with whom he served, unless they went on "to spend at least three years working in business," however that would be defined.     So, too, would Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and possibly Ronald Reagan have been barred from the highest office in the land.

No doubt the mainstream media will ask the exquisitely elitist Romney why he believes law enforcement officers and military veterans, if they don't otherwise gain the requisite experience "working in business" as approved by the state, should be precluded from becoming president.     Then they will also ask Mitt Romney why he's so anxious to keep rabbis and Christian members of the clergy from becoming president.    But, oops!    That would be raising the issue of religion- and we wouldn't want to do that unless it's about Jeremiah Wright, would we?


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