Things Mitt Romney Said Last Night That Make Him Sound Like the Prick He Is (And a Breakdown):
1. "Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses. In another era of American crisis, Thomas Paine is reported to have said, 'Lead, follow or get out of the way.'" Yeah, chances are that's an urban myth. It appears in none of Paine's writings, hence Romney's hedging just for a chance to invoke the Beck-beloved Paine. And Paine, who said, among other things, "My country is the world," would have taken a shit on Romney for his rabid nationalism.

2. "I know what it's like to start a business. I know how extra ordinarily difficult it is to build something from nothing." And then ten seconds later: "My leadership helped build businesses from scratch." Yeah, he never built jackshit from scratch. He financed things and offered advice (perhaps, when he wasn't destroying already built businesses), but he was more a cheerleader than a construction worker.

3. "We balanced the budget every single year." Yeah, see, Romney was required to do that by the Massachusetts state constitution (under "General Provisions," Article 107, Section 2). So he was just following the law, much of which comes from the original 1780 language of the document. It'd be like proudly proclaiming, "And I never murdered anyone." (For real fun, read how the Massachusetts governor's office contorts itself to define "balanced.")

4. "This campaign is about more than replacing a president. It's about saving the soul of America." Coming from a man whose religion baptizes dead Holocaust victims into their faith, it's pretty fuckin' creepy.

5. "The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution." And if you don't see what's cruel and dickish about that, then you're a prick, too.

Last night, when Newt Gingrich said that he was going to stay in the race just to fuck with Romney (it's not what he said, but it's why he's doing it), the Rude Pundit was thrilled at the idea of having Gingrich to kick around some more, to write a few more eulogies for the death of the career of one of the biggest cancerous tumors in modern political history. But then, in the cold light of day, he thought, "Fuck this nomination race. Fuck Romney. Fuck Gingrich."

The Rude Pundit's taking a break from talking about them (unless they do something interesting, like shoot up a daycare or gut Ron Paul and wear his skin like a robe). They simply don't matter. Romney's gonna win the nomination. He's gonna lose to Obama. Badly. Period. What the Republican candidates believe and what they promise and what it means that they're fighting and all of it is fake shit from a disgraced media that needs a storyline better than "Jesus Christ, these are dangerous bastards who would drag the nation back to the Stone Age, and we can't pretend their ideas have any validity."

So, for the next month, at least, he's not gonna play along for a while and pretend that they matter in any way. There's more important shit to talk about. There's people who actually have an impact on our lives who need to be taken down or fluffed up. There's congressional races that Democrats have a stake in that ought to be understood.

Mitt Romney just said that he's "not concerned about the very poor." And we're supposed to take him seriously? Not this blog.