Pretty much everyone in the universe has seen or heard of Mitt Romney’s magic video by now. I’m not a pundit, but, as Chris Matthews said on Tuesday evening, I find the whole thing “delicious,” and just want to underline the following points:
1. Mitt was comfortable with his audience. One of his sticking points throughout this campaign, and his abortive 2008 campaign, has been his awkwardness with audiences. Well, now we know why: he hasn’t felt comfortable. The video was taken at a $50K/plate dinner, and Mitt was in his element, and speaking to his peers.
2. Explaining the video later, he said something like he hadn’t expressed himself elegantly. I disagree. He was very elegant. He believes, very frankly, that many poor Americans are moochers, and said so straightforwardly.
3. Mitt has not been very forthcoming about his plan to shrink the government budget. From this video, I think we can extrapolate some of the areas he’d shrink: anything benefiting the less affluent classes. They really need to work harder, don’t they? We don’t want to empower them. They need to be put in their place.
4. Mitt said that he didn’t rise from privilege, he didn’t inherit money, he earned everything he has. Is he deluded, or is he just telling the same lie that all wealthy heirs tell themselves? Of course he inherited money from his CEO/governor father. He’s turned it into billions, of course, and good for him. But, Mitt, don’t tell us that you were born in a log cabin, okay?
5. There was some garbled nonsense about being born a Mexican. I will leave that alone. He said he was joking, but then again, he took it back and said (very seriously) he’d have a better chance for the Presidency if he were Latino. Meaning: “Stupid people just love voting for those damned minorities.”
6. I haven’t even read the whole transcript yet. (I can’t stand to watch the video; his voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.) It is, however, the gift that keeps on giving. Today it was noticed that he said (a few months ago) that, if there were any foreign-policy difficulties overseas, he’d try to capitalize on the opportunity. Remember last week, when he ranted about how the Obama administration “sympathized with the attackers” rather than condemning the attacks in Egypt and Libya? Huh.
7. Rarely have I seen such cynicism freely expressed. The whole video boils down to Mitt saying to his wealthy audience: “Between you and me, I’ll say and do whatever I have to say and do to get elected. And once I’m in there, I’ll do what’s necessary to advance our agenda.”
8. Vote for Obama.
9. Vote for Obama.
10. Vote for Obama.
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