Mitt’s Marie Antoinette Moment

It’s early for this week’s Shut Up, Fool! Award, but Mitt Romney has already made a strong bid to lock it up twice in a row. We don’t know much of what Mitt believes in, but he’s made it clear, he believes anyone who supports President Obama is a freeloading maggot.

Mother Jones magazine has a tape of Mitt Romney speaking to a room full of donors and he makes it pretty clear what he thinks about a good-sized chunk of the American population:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney went on: “[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Anyone who wants to be the President of the United States has to be represent all the country, not just part of it. In effect, Romney is saying he will work for 53 percent of Americans while the rest can drop dead.

I can hear the argument coming from Romney’s defenders even before they open their mouth. Let me stop them before they say it. You think it’s dirty pool to surreptitiously tape Romney without his knowledge? I’ll grant that it isn’t entirely ethical, but politically it’s entirely fair. Nobody on the Right squawked prior to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008 when Obama was caught saying about working class White voters, “And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

At that time Obama’s remarks were pounced upon by rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain. “It’s a remarkable statement and extremely revealing,” McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said “It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking, it is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”

It’s déjà vu all over again. This is Romney’s guns and God moment. He believes there are two Americas and any old person collecting Social Security, any veteran who receives treatment in a Veterans Administration hospital, and every child who isn’t going hungry because her family receives food stamps isn’t taking “personal responsibility.”

Mittens doesn’t stand for much, but what he does stand for is cold, callous and class warfare. What he said is the proof of what liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith once observed, The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

With his poorly thought out statements about the Middle East protests, Romney displayed his unfitness for the presidency. These remarks should cost him dearly. 50 days away from the election and Romney has demonstrated he doesn’t give a damn about nearly half of the country.

Last week Mitt Romney demonstrated his unfitness for the office of the presidency. This week he demonstrated he’s a wealthy plutocrat who looks down his elitist nose at anyone who isn’t White, rich and privileged. He doesn’t deserve to be president. He isn’t ready to be president. He shouldn’t be president.

Keep reminding yourself that when you go to the polls in less than 60 days and vote accordingly.