The new senator from Utah is, after all, still getting his phone line connected. The official Senate website still refers to him as “Senator-elect Mitt Romney.”
Romney entered the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body with more gravitas than most junior senators. And his recent campaign was largely based on the not unreasonable promise that he, unlike more callow and ambitious politicians, would have an ability to apply just the right mix of charm and pressure to actually get things done.
But this mess belongs — lock, stock and missed paychecks — to the president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans.