Today in Mitt Romney Is Still Terrible

Mitt Romney lost fair and square because he is terrible and his policies are garbage. But he has other ideas about why he lost the election to President Barack Obama, and—spoiler alert!—they do not include his being terrible and hawking garbage policies:

Mitt Romney on Wednesday attributed his defeat in part to what he called big policy "gifts" that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.

In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign, Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the "old playbook" of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest groups — "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people."

"In each case, they were very generous in what they gave to those groups," Mr. Romney said...

"With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift," Mr. Romney said. "Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents' plan, and that was a big gift to young people."

..."You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you're now going to get free health care, particularly if you don't have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge," Mr. Romney said. "Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group."

None of this, of course, is remotely surprising from the guy who thinks people aren't entitled to food, and whose running mate was blaming "urban voters" for their loss two days ago. These are highly entitled, titanically privileged, and voraciously greedy bigots who wouldn't accept personal accountability if it were dipped in gold and hand-delivered by Jesus.

And they manifestly refuse to learn. This sneering contempt for people who do not share their privileges is why they are losing. And instead of stepping back to reassess whether maybe "Bootstraps, losers!" isn't a winning strategy, they obdurately reject empathy and bridge-building in favor of doubling down on rank hostility and scapegoating.

It's just the worst bunch of sour grapes being smashed into bitter red whine.

And it would be awful to watch, if only I weren't so pleased by the evidence of their increasing inability to effectively conceal the personal cruelty that underwrites their reprehensible policies.

Perhaps Reagan's rosy-cheeked mask of affability has finally and forever fallen from the ugly face of modern conservatism.