US presidential candidate bitten by animal cruelty charge

Last week the new wave band Devo, the men with the odd headgear who made the hit Whip It, released a song entitled Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro.  The song is about a now-infamous incident involving the American politician Mitt Romney and the family dog Seamus, an Irish setter. That incident first made news in 2007 when the former governor of Massachusetts made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Now that Romney has secured the nomination, the Seamus story has returned to bite him.

In 1983 the candidate took his wife and five sons on a road trip from Belmont, Massachusetts to Ontario in Canada. They didn’t want to go on vacation without their dog Seamus, so instead of boarding him at a kennel they took him along. Which sounds sweet until you learn about the manner of transport. Seamus was placed inside a crate-type carrier, which was then strapped to the roof of the family’s station wagon. This would seem like a practical solution — the car must’ve been crowded with seven people and their luggage in it. In fact one of Romney’s sons had told the story to illustrate how organized, efficient and logical his father is.

To ensure Seamus’s comfort, Mitt Romney had built a windshield for the carrier. This way the wind would not smack the dog in the face throughout the 12-hour drive. Nonetheless Seamus was clearly not comfortable during the trip. Picture a dog in a crate on top of a car moving at high speed — he must’ve been tossed around the carrier and thrown against the sides whenever the car made a turn. The dogs and cats we know would’ve been terrified. Seamus made his discomfort known in a particularly visceral way. He had diarrhea.

Liquid poop oozed out of the carrier and down the windows of the family car. “Gross!” the Romney kids chorused as their view was obstructed by brown. Their efficient and logical father quickly came up with a solution. He stopped at a gas station and hosed down Seamus, the carrier, and the station wagon.

Then he strapped the dog’s carrier back on the roof and they continued on their 650-mile drive to Canada. According to the reporter who broke the story, the Seamus incident was a useful illustration of how the presidential candidate operates — he uses logic, not emotion. Perhaps if Romney were a little more emotional he would’ve seen that Seamus was so scared, he fouled himself (and the family car). Romney’s wife Ann contends that the dog loved the crate, and that his intestinal problem was caused by some turkey he’d eaten before the trip.

The story is supposed to have ended happily, with the family and their dog arriving in Canada. We don’t know if Seamus rode the roof rack on the drive home. According to reports Seamus was a sociable dog given to wandering out of the house and ending up at the pound. The Romneys were worried that he’d get hit by a car, so a few years after that road trip they gave him to an aunt in California. Seamus is said to have lived to a ripe old age on a farm with lots of fresh air and sunshine.

That rustic happy ending has been contested by a political blogger, who claims that after his ride of terror Seamus sought asylum in Canada. Apparently Romney’s sons — the same source of the roof rack report — had told reporters off the record that when they got to Canada, Seamus ran away. The Irish setter could not be reached for comment, being either dead or roaming the wilds of Canada.

Whether the dog-on-the-roof story or the Devo song have any effect on the American electorate remains to be seen. Naturally animal rights activists have condemned Romney’s actions. The website Dogs Against Romney, founded in 2007, has been campaigning against the Republican nominee and the New York Times columnist Gail Collins has written about three dozen columns on the voyage of Seamus. Of course reaction to Crate-Gate has been divided along party lines. Some journalists argue that Romney did nothing wrong, and that Seamus’s ride on the roof was not much different from that of pets transported in the cargo hold of airplanes. We think not — unless the planes experienced 12 hours of continuous turbulence.

However you feel about animal rights or Crate-Gate, you have to wonder whether the voyage of Seamus is a metaphor for a possible Romney presidency. Let’s hope they’re not barreling down the highway with their windows covered in poop.

We’ll let Devo have the last word:

Your master’s story seems air-tight

But somethin’ about him isn’t right

He’ll say anything to win the race

Wish you could rise up from your grave

And tell the world

How his smile hides

The soul of an angry little man

Whip it good.