Mitt Romney's Priorities

Here is the Associated Press account of Mitt Romney's latest move as executed through that great arbiter of public opinion, CNN:

Republican Mitt Romney said Wednesday that if elected president he and his wife will not embarrass the nation by their conduct in the White House as happened in "the Clinton years."

In an interview on CNN, Romney was asked about comments he made at recent house parties in Iowa that he and his wife, Ann, would not embarrass the nation in the White House. He is campaigning for Thursday's Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa, while Hillary Rodham Clinton is campaigning on the Democratic side.

So whose gored ox did Romney have in mind? I suspect that most of those who were embarrassed by either of the Clintons (and were particularly vociferous about it) were Americans whose highest priority was that of moral standards consistent with their religious convictions. On the other hand most of those who have been embarrassed by Bush, his cronies, and their policies, have been from the rest of the world and have involved priorities concerned with such things as the Kyoto Accord and the reform of an international criminal justice system. Does this mean that the coming election will come down to choosing whether to restore our reputation domestically or globally? Are we so polarized in our priorities that we shall not be able to find a way to restore both reputations?