Mitt`s dog on car-roof goof won`t go away

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Mitt`s dog on car-roof goof won`t go away - 12/11/2011 10:28:10 PM

Owner59

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http://www.thespec.com/news/world/article/637652--romney-once-drove-to-canada-with-dog-on-car-s-roof

"It’s not come up in any of the Republican presidential debates as he struggles to keep his campaign on course. He isn’t faced with questions about the incident on the campaign trail. Animal rights activists haven’t been heckling him in Iowa.

But it’s a true story with a Canadian angle: Mitt Romney once made the 12-hour drive from Boston to Grand Bend, Ont., with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins has refused to let the largely forgotten story die, mentioning the incident as many as two dozen times since Romney entered the Republican race for president, both in 2007 and in 2011.

She even hoped John McCain would tap Romney as his running mate three years ago “so I can repeatedly revisit the time Mitt drove to Canada with the family dog on the station-wagon roof.” And just a year ago, Collins had an idea for a Christmas gift for the former Massachusetts governor: “A tasteful Mitt Romney Christmas ornament” depicting the scene of Seamus, the Irish setter, on the roof.

The Boston Globe first broke the story in 2007 when it published a seven-piece profile of Romney after he launched his first presidential run. The Seamus incident was contained in a story about his family life with wife, Ann, and their five sons, and meant to illustrate Romney’s “emotion-free crisis management.”

In 1983, Romney was struggling to cram the kids and all their luggage and supplies into the family station wagon for the long drive to the Lake Huron shores of Grand Bend, where his family still owns a cottage at Beach O’ Pines, a mostly American enclave in the area.

“Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack,” the Globe wrote of Romney, then a 36-year-old management consultant with Boston-based Bain and Company.

Romney constructed a special windshield for the carrier, “to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.” The contraption apparently wasn’t much of a success, however, as Seamus soon began to suffer gastric issues from his windy perch atop the car.

Romney’s oldest boy, Tagg, noticed the first sign of trouble, according to the Globe piece.

“Dad!” he yelled. “Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window of the station wagon.

Romney calmly dealt with the problem amid his boys’ howls of disgust, pulling into a service station to hose down Seamus and the car. He put the dog back in the crate and continued the drive to Ontario.

The story caused a flap when it was revealed four years ago.

“If you wouldn’t strap your child to the roof of your car, you have no business doing that to the family dog,” said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “I don’t know who would find that acceptable.”

To Time magazine, she described the incident as “torture.”

http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/dog.asp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzROK6s1KE8

< Message edited by Owner59 -- 12/11/2011 10:29:20 PM >

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