If you're losing, there's something wrong with the winning guy, right?

From a Romney adviser we get an astonishing peek into persevering denial:

[Mitt Romney] believes it's time to vet the president. He really hasn't been vetted; McCain didn't do it.

Such bloated nonsense--let's see, Obama has been a state senator, a U.S. senator, a presidential candidate for two years and for nearly four years president of the United States--is more pathological than nonsensical. In fact, though the charge is inherently, conspicuously nonsensical, it makes perfect sense to the emotionally stunted mind.

Obama doesn't rattle. And there's nothing so rattling to the bullying personality--hello, Mitt & Co.--than a targeted victim who refuses to be victimized and instead returns fire, times ten. Romney dispatched his primary opponents with small effort and enormous sums of cash, which helped to construct, day by day, a nominee fully convinced of his own might; then he collided with a heavyweight, who promptly began mopping the ring with him.

Romney's response? There must be something wrong with Obama--he's not the man he claims to be, he cannot be the man he claims to be, there's a something mysteriously elusive in him, deep, deep inside, that is intrinsically vulnerable to Romney's self-righteous power. If only Romney can uncover it.

Because bullies don't lose. Bullies can't lose--unless they're somehow tricked.

Comments

[japa21]

Let's see:
Candidate X is asked questions about his history, which he has actually used to promote his candidacy, and starts losing it, getting petty.

Candidate Y gets pelted with a bunch of petty stuff, mostly recycled from the past, and stays calm, cool and collected.

Which one to you want to be in charge of the country?

[You Don't Say]

Their 'it's all about the economy' must not be working or they could just double down on that. Unless they want to go after Obama not for efficacy but for revenge.

[Janicket]

Brilliant observation (but what else would we expect of you?) on a bully careening into one who won't be bullied.

Mitt's previous victims got rattled and enraged and thrown off balance and defensive by his attacks, just as the bully wanted. Obama, though, refuses to react according to the bully's expectations. Heck, not only does he punch back, harder, he's amused rather than perturbed -- an attitude captured perfectly in this LOLcaption:

http://inlinethumb37.webshots.com/50276/2326946220000735275S600x600Q85.jpg

This is NOT how the bully's victim is supposed to react! This is WRONG! How DARE he laugh it off? Must hit harder! Smite more furiously! Unleash the attack dog Sununu (he of the Havana birth, the Palestinian father, the Salvadoran mother) to bray about Obama being unAmerican!

And none of it's going to get through the armor of our President's unflappable confidence, which will send the Romney campaign into further downward spirals of impotent outrage.

I predict at some point near the end (or perhaps sooner) someone on the rabid Right is going to lose it entirely and the N-word will spill out. Not saying Romney himself is a racist; but there are people on his side who can barely restrain themselves from public eruptions as it is.

[Josh]

I'm genuinely surprised at how unprofessional and inept the Romney campaign seems to be. I'm sure they're all well paid, but they're acting more like a group of second or third rate advisers.

It's one thing to say things like "we don't think he's been vetted," but it's another to actually believe it. They're using their own product, and it's going to cost them.

[Peter G]

I love this particular piece of photoshopping. Says it all really. http://blog.crispen.org/the-apology/

[dricey]

This is evidence that Mitt Romney's still that prep school punk who assaulted another student for the crime of being different. He hasn't grown up a lick in the last nearly fifty years.

It also leaves me wondering how long it'll be before Mitt goes Birther on us. It sure looks more likely than it did a couple of weeks ago.

[Robert Lipscomb]

I heard an interesting comment on "Morning Joe" today.

Bain Capital bought several companies and surely performed "due diligence" on all those companies prior to purchase. Did Bain Capital ever buy a company based on two years or less due diligence?

[AnneJ]

Well yesterday's displays by Rush and Sununu clearly demonstrate that the right wing attack machine which used to be so finely tuned has now malfunctioned into full monkey-poo flinging mode.

I would not normally use the word "stupid" to describe Mitt Romney but I would use the word "arrogant". And maybe too much arrogance can make one stupid. The always pampered and well cared for Willard Romney has never known a day of hardship in his life and it is doing him a great disservice now. Does anyone not honestly believe that President Obama knew what he would be getting into becoming the first African American president of the United States? Does anyone not honestly believe that he didn't get as far as he did in life without this kind of treatment already? I just hope that the president is able to overcome all of the superpac money, the voter suppression is some states and whatever other dirty tricks may be thrown his way between now and November. Especially the superpac money. I for one, would get a huge kick out of seeing all that angry billionaire money get wasted on a losing candidate.

[Chester Allman]

I like your metaphor. Romney was a lightweight among featherweights; now he's stepped into the ring against a heavyweight, and it ain't going well.

Seriously, though, this is pretty amazing. Even after all the questions about who was using whom in the right's establishment/base relationship, I would have expected that in a freaking Presidential race, when it matters most, the establishment would have asserted control and pursued a rational political strategy. If they go through with this strategy shift, it may be final, definitive proof that the movement has vanquished the establishment.

[Peter G]

it appears that the Republican shot locker is starting to look a little bare. Now that they've sent their leading arquebusier, Sununu, to direct fire at the Obama camp, only now does it occur to anyone to check the best before date on the shot. I wonder what's left to shoot? Sparklers?

[Chris Andersen]

The "he hasn't been vetted yet" is standard Tea Party rhetoric where it concerns Obama. This is nothing new. But it proves that the TP has taken over Romney's campaign and that can be nothing but good news for the rest of America. The TP model works in limited areas of the country. But it fails miserably most everywhere else.

The idea that Obama hasn't been vetted is laughable even for those voters who aren't particularly happy with him right now. If this is going to be the primary theme of Romney's campaign then he is in serious trouble.

[majii]

A major problem that many on the Right have regarding PBO is that Fox, RW politicians and pundits, and their RW radio entertainers have created their own narrative about who the president is, but it has no basis in reality. They have never considered the fact that not everyone in the country sees what they see when they look at the president. Romney and the other GOPers have repeatedly described PBO as being weak. I think this, to a certain extent, can be used to explain their shock at the president's willingness to go after Romney with a vengeance. They never saw it coming because, in the RW echo chamber, it's an accepted fact that PBO is the weakest POTUS in history, so when he flexes his muscles, they're caught off guard and blindsided.

[Josh]

I think that's a great point, and as I've said elsewhere lately, I think it's unwise for politicians or their advisers to believe their own product (or the product that people on their side are putting out).

It's fine to say that Obama is weak or whatever, but just don't make the mistake of actually believing it. I think a lot of Republicans, perhaps right on up to Mit Romney, have made the mistake of believing it.

[Beauzeaux]

Entitlement, thy name is Romney. Poor Mittens, he's always been The Prince. Even the money from Bain wasn't acquired through a particular skill -- pillaging and burning stopped being a high-level career long ago.
No one denies him anything and now it's his "turn" and The Others are trying to deny it to him.
Besides, he's the white guy.
By the by, I DO think Mittens is a racist. His church (to which he gives large amounts of money) certainly is racist, sexist & homophobic. You can't grow up in that environment and not absorb that black people have the Mark of Cain upon them and are hardly even human. (That was "changed" in 1978 when Mitt was 21 but not everyone got the memo.)