On growing old with Mitt Romney

By Bob Gaydos
* * *

"I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and *

Forever hate the word ''impeach''?

***

With profound apologies to T.S. Eliot and his poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the topic here is politicians and age.

Or is it?

If you believe Mitt Romney it is. Looking and sounding fit and capable and considerably younger than his 76 years, the senator from Utah recently announced he would not seek re-election to the Senate next year.

In doing so, he also criticized President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, both older than Romney, and called for them to "stand aside" for a "new generation of leaders" in Washington.

Romney, also a former governor of Massachusetts and the defeated Republican candidate for president in 2012, said neither Democrat Biden, 80, nor Republican Trump, 77, is effectively leading his party in addressing the important issues of the day, which is a typically safe and even-handed Romney-style comment. A pox on both their houses.

To be fair, Romney was the only Republican senator with the courage to vote guilty on Trump's two impeachments and he did have some frank, unflattering words to say specifically about his party.

"There's no question that the Republican Party today is in the shadow of Donald Trump," he said, adding that the MAGA wing that has commandeered the party is less concerned with governing and more enamored with "resentment and settling scores and revisiting the 2020 election."

Those are unusually harsh and honest and rare words for an elected Republican official to state publicly about his party today.

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