OPINION&BOOKS
Editorials, F2 Commentary, F3 Books, F4-6
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012
F
www.bendbulletin.com/opinion
DAVID BROOKS
Wealth not the issue for Romney
M
itt Romney is a rich man, but is Mitt Romney’s character formed by his wealth? Is Romney a spoiled, cosseted character? Has he been corrupted by ease and luxury? The notion is preposterous. All his life, Romney has been a worker and a grinder. He earned two degrees at Harvard simultaneously (in law and business). He built a business. He’s persevered year after year, amid defeat after defeat, to build a political career. Romney’s salient quality is not wealth. It is, for better and worse, his tenacious drive — the sort of relentlessness that we associate with striving immigrants, not rich scions. Where did this persistence come from? It’s plausible to think that it came from his family history. Philosopher Michael Oakeshott once observed that it takes several generations to make a career. Interests, habits and lore accrue in families and shape those born into them. The Romney family history, which is nicely described in “The Real Romney” by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, is a story of tenacious work, setbacks and recovery. People who analyze how Mormonism may have shaped Romney generally look to theology. But the Mormon history, the exodus, matters most. Mitt Romney’s great-great-grandfather Miles was a member of the church in Nauvoo, Ill., and spent years building a temple there. Even after Joseph Smith was killed by a mob and most of the Mormons fled, Miles stayed to finish his temple. Then, in 1844, as it was being completed, mobs burned it to the ground. Most Mormons made the trek to Salt Lake City, but the Romneys could not afford an ox cart. They were part of a small, malnourished band that took four years to make it the 1,300 miles. Mitt’s great-grandfather, also Miles, made the trek starting at age 7. He was married in 1862, but a month after his marriage Brigham Young told him to leave his wife, Hannah, and become a missionary for three years in Britain. Hannah supported herself by taking in other people’s washing. Miles returned in 1867 and bought a two-room house. Young commanded him to take another wife, and Hannah had to prepare the room for the woman who would be her rival. “I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow,” she recounted in her own private memoir. Then they were commanded to leave family and friends and build a settlement in the desert 300 miles south of Salt Lake City. Then came another command to move 400 miles across the wilderness to settle a desert patch in Arizona. Again the Romneys were thrown into hardship. Miles, his three wives and their many children lived in a small wooden house and survived on bread, beans and gravy. There, as elsewhere, the locals detested the Mormons for their polygamy, for their religion and for the fact that the Mormons tended to outwork them. The local newspaper said Miles should be hanged for polygamy, so two of his wives were sent to hide. They were compelled to move again. Romney left his family to build a colony in Mexico. Eventually, all the wives and the 21 children were reunited. Miles and his son Gaskell, Mitt’s grandfather, built a successful community. George Romney, Mitt’s father, was born in Mexico. But when he was 5, in 1912, Mexican revolutionaries confiscated their property and threw them out. Within days, they went from owning a large Mexican ranch to being penniless once again, drifting from California to Idaho to Utah, where again they built a fortune. Mitt Romney can’t talk about his family history on the campaign trail. Mormonism is an uncomfortable subject. But he must have been affected by it. Romney seems to share his family’s remorseless drive to rise. He may have character flaws, but he does not have the character flaws normally associated with great wealth. His signature is focus and persistence. The wealth issue is a sideshow. — David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times. John Costa’s column will return.
Photos by Tyler Hicks / New York Times News Service
Fighter jets on the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, in the North Arabian Sea, fly sorties into Afghanistan. The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones.
OVER AFGHANISTAN,
A changed view of aerial warfare • A new mentality has U.S. fighter jets taking a largely nonlethal support role By C.J. Chivers New York Times News Service
INSIDE STRIKE FIGHTER VENGEANCE 13, over Kandahar province, Afghanistan —
C
mdr. Layne McDowell glanced over his left shoulder, through the canopy of a Navy F/A-18, to an Afghan canyon 9,000 feet below. A U.S. infantry company was down there. The soldiers had been inserted by helicopter. Now a ground controller wanted the three strike fighters circling overhead to send a sign — both to the grunts and to any Taliban fighters shadowing them as they walked.
McDowell banked and aligned his jet’s nose with the canyon’s northeastern end. Then he followed his wingmen’s lead. He dived, pulled level at 5,000 feet and accelerated down the canyon’s axis at about 620 miles per hour, broadcasting his proximity with an extended engine roar. In the lexicon of close air support, his maneuver was a “show of presence” — a mid-altitude, nonlethal display intended to reassure ground troops and signal to the Taliban that the soldiers were not alone. It reflected a sharp shift in the application of U.S. air power, de-emphasizing overpowering violence in favor of sorties that often end without ordnance be-
ing dropped. The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones, which can watch over potential targets for extended periods with no risk to pilots or more expensive aircraft. Fighter jets with pilots, however, remain an essential component of the war, in part because little else in the allied arsenal is considered as versatile or imposing, and because of improvements in the aircraft’s sensors. See Fighter jets / F6
Cmdr. Layne McDowell, who was recently involved in an F/A-18 mission, aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, in the North Arabian Sea on Jan. 10.
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