Review: This Land is My Land

For an alternate take on this book, see Review: This Land is My Land by Al Butterman.

This Land is My Land: the Mitt Romney Story

By Mitt Romney
Diamond Publishing, 275 Pages
Reviewed by Sally Putterman

Unlike some other reviewers at the Daily Brass I could and will name, Al Butterman, this reviewer was less than enthralled with Mitt Romney’s self-serving autobiography released this past month by the Diamond Publishing Group.  Now, some people will naturally I assume that I am one of those so-called “liberals,” just because I recently made a blanket statement about conservatives in Spill the Beans Magazine, the world’s largest circulated periodical devoted to bean-related interviews, and that I prejudged this book before ever reading it, but this is not true--for one thing, that quote in which I said, “All conservatives these days are a bunch of deranged nitwits,” was taken largely out of context, and for another thing, I read a full three pages of This Land is My Land before I bothered to prejudge it!  Now that I’ve read the book, I think I can safely say, without fear of accused bias, that Mitt Romney is a deranged nitwit.

The seeds of Mitt’s derangement and nitwitification were sown early in his life, perhaps as early as middle school, when he was interviewed by the school newspaper.  Even at that young age, Mittley proved a deft politician.  When asked his position on the rainforest, Mitt answered, “I love trees.  I love how those trees in the rainforest are just the right size.  They’re not too big like those Californian Redwoods, or too small like a Japanese Banzai.  Give me a medium-sized rainforest tree any day of the week.”  Despite this bizarre non-answer, I was willing to give Mitt’s younger self the benefit of the doubt.  One cannot judge a person based on who they were when they were young. 

See!  I’m not biased!

Fast-forward 30 years to an older Mitt, now running for president, reflecting on his days as the head of Bain Capital to truly see what I mean about his derangelical nitwitism.  It was then, on the campaign stump, that Mitt claimed, of all things, that he once ran a small business.

“Bain Capital was a small business,” he said.  “Our building was only seven stories tall.  I have houses taller than that.  Heck, I have a car elevator that goes up ten stories.”  He added, “The fact of the matter is we had very few employees at Bain: just my rich friends, a staff of bankruptcy lawyers, and some secretaries and assistants whose names I can’t place at the moment.”

How can a man be so out of touch?  If this is not proof of his nitwitical derangitude, I don’t know what is.  Yes I do.  What about this?  On the subject of his tax returns, Mitt makes a boldly derangistic nitwiticism. “We’ve given you people, and by you people, I mean, you, the people, all the information we’re going to give on that subject.  The fact of the matter is I paid taxes.  I  paid a lot of taxes.  Do you know what the sales tax on a Lamborghini is these days?  I don’t either, but my accountant assures me it’s a lot.” 

Despite my anger at Romney’s derangerous nitwititude, I found myself torn at times.  When taken one at a time, I supported fully half of Romney’s positions on the issues.  Unfortunately, I disagreed with him on the other half of the issues, which were, in fact, the same issues.  As if to prove my point, Diamond Publishing implemented a boldly experimental  structure when it came to Mitt’s policy positions.  Rather than being printed on ink, the publisher managed to somehow include an Etch-O-Sketch format into the book binding process that allwos all of Mitt’s positions to disappear whenever you pick up the book.  I found myself playing with the book for hours.  In a way it was kind of cool. 

Sally Putterman is lead book reviewer for the Daily Brass

She will soon be reviewing: What Were You Thinking?  A Message to Liberals from Barack Obama by Barack Obama.