By now you've heard eight shades of why Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" comment bothers people. Let me explain in some part why it bothers me personally.
First, let me play a little devil's advocate and say that any statement can be taken out of context. It happens with people of all walks and statures, and over things that are both trivial and significant. Heck, you can even build an entire convention around it (not that I give the GOP any real credit for creating such a crapstorm over the President's "you didn't build that" comment; their dog and pony show was a pretty silly thing to do...).
Having said that, let me be clear: there is nothing about what Mitt Romney said that I like. There is no spin to be placed on it that makes me feel any better about it.
Because what you have to understand about what he said is that it isn't a new thought. A lot of people have gone through life aware of the fact that people with money, regardless of how they may have acquired it, have a problem with it being used to help less fortunate people. They perceive it as giving the lesser fortunate person a "handout". And furthermore, the more fortunate person perceives the world as owing them something for taking care of these less fortunate people.
As such, they view those other people, the less fortunate ones, exactly the way that Romney portrays them. In their minds, they are not only dependent on the government for assistance, but these poor souls feel some sense of entitlement to government funds. They deserve to be taken care of, like it is owed to them or something.
Except in some cases, this is entirely true. The elderly, the disabled, soldiers who have fought overseas... these people are quite entitled to benefits from the government. Alternatively, there are countless others who are just down on their luck and need some temporary assistance. These people also need a little help from the government, if only for a little while.
The continued notion that not only a significant amount but also the majority of people who have little to no tax obligation (and by that we mean income tax; other taxes are paid in various ways) are somehow a bunch of self-entitled freeloaders is not only incorrect but a little insane. It's the type of self-delusional tripe that rich people feed themselves so that they don't feel so bad about getting over on the system through their own dodges and tax breaks.
And that's why what Mitt Romney said strikes such an ugly chord with me. Because it bothers me that he can speak those inaccurate numbers so dismissively. It bothers me that he can say what he said about almost half of the population of my country to a room full of people and not have that room of people have an issue with it. It bothers me that he said it not just because it was a personal opinion of his, but also because he knew that was the type of thing that they wanted to hear.
There is no greater truth to it. As political strategy, it's suicide. And to paraphrase Bob Schieffer, there is no fathomable reason that a candidate running for high office should say something like that. Unless, of course, you have the poor judgment and lack of character of a Mitt Romney.
That same lack of character, for the record, allows Romney to attack President Obama using excerpts from a speech the President made over a decade ago. And, as is par for the course, taken just out of context enough to be warped into the Republican's own sense of reality.
That's what we've come down to now. We've reached the point where people can twist less damning phrases out of context to build their monsters, all while spinning their own miscues into "harsh, inelegant truths".
Tuesday night, the President let Romney off the hook by admitting that everyone can misspeak sometimes.
Less than 24 hours later, the GOP couldn't help themselves from going on a witch hunt with footage that's over a decade old.
Because really, you should hold everyone's words, every single one they have ever spoken, against them. No matter how inelegant. Isn't that right, Mitt?
