In yesterday's NY Times, David Javerbaum posted an epic smackdown of Mitt Romney that is not to be missed. I checked to see if anyone had written about it here already, but shockingly, DKos may have missed this one.
This post will be exceedingly terse, and more in line with ken or others here who bring us links from other sources saying "Go read this piece right now!!"
But seriously, it is short, smart, and hilarious. Well worth the time and one of your 20 monthly clicks on the Times website.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidate’s position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force — the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany — compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible).
The piece goes on to combine the two things hated most by those who will likely support a RMoney candidacy
1)
Science
2) Reality-based progressive political humor
It would be unfair to quote much more than that intro sentence lest many of you think you get the gist of the piece without clicking the link. But in effect, you would deprive yourself of the best parts.
Javerbaum proceeds to build a list of ways to explain the reasons why this theory helps us to understand who or what Mitt/Romney really is in ways only decipherable to a complex systems analyst.
Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.
He builds upon this method to a penultimate paragraph that leaves us gasping for breath as we read, nod, and smile to the end where he delivers the knockout blow.
The only problem is that we wish it wasn't such a short read after all.