ManicDDaily

I am not unsympathetic to Mitt Romney.

But I do have some disagreements with even his beginning statements in the secretly-taped video from his May fundraiser in Florida (statements made before he gets down to percentages.)

Romney talks of his wealth as entirely self-made.  This is based on the fact that he and his wife donated the funds they inherited from their fathers. He also characterizes his only silver spoon as his birth in the U.S.

I applaud Romney for his charitable donations of his inheritance.  (I’m sorry, but I do have to note that this happened well after he was already very wealthy.  Still, he did do it.)

And I too feel very lucky to have been born in the U.S.

But I am troubled that Romney does not seem to appreciate the tremendous leg-up he was born with; that he does not seem to understand the self-confidence that membership in an important and wealthy family imparts; the risk-taking and ease that arise from having something to fall back upon.

We cannot help the gifts we are given at birth.

And, of course, it is tempting (even if one is not running for office) to tout one’s own part in one’s development.

But grace, empathy, wisdom and even a certain quality of leadership seem (to me at least) to go hand in hand with a modesty that over-emphasizes, rather than undercuts, what we’ve been given by others and that understands the difficulties faced by those without similar good fortune.

Romney might very well acknowledge the specifics of his good fortune in a quiet room with just a couple of people around.  But in the quiet room of the video, attitudes of gratitude and empathy don’t seem to make it into the camera’s viewfinder.  And, regardless of what you think of Romney’s proposed policies or whether his work at Bain qualifies as “old-fashioned” and “hard work,” or his own taxpaying record, this is troubling.