Romney takes campaign etch-a-sketch way downmarket

AP/Romney scrawls his meandering lie on a whiteboard in SC

"Name calling to me and somehow by you repeating a number of $716 billion, that you can make that stick when [you say] that figure is being 'stolen' from Medicare, that's not true. You can't just repeat it and make it true, sir."

- Soledad O'Brien, CNN

Willard must tell this lie and it is vital to his divine candidacy that you believe it: President Obama's prescription for Medicaid surgically removes $716 billion from the program in the form of reductions in benefits to seniors.

He is compelled to repeat this lie until hopefully it sinks into the American electorate's consciousness by some sort of osmosis.
Additionally, he must employ the lying talents of Republicans up and down the GOP hierarchy until it becomes as magical to the ear as the underwear worn by the Endowed within his church is to their souls.

He is even willing to tear down the credibility of revered Tea Party budget "guru" Paul Ryan by sending him on the fool's errand of countermanding the very Path to Prosperity that was hailed as the toast of the Beltway and his path out of obscurity.

So desperate is Romney to make believers of the media pundits, that he traded in his campaign's infamous etch-a-sketch for a simple whiteboard. And on that blank slate, Bain Capital's Brain put forth his most compelling cost comparison with his competitor:

 Romney’s white board had one column labeled “Obama” another “Romney.” Under each column was a line for “seniors” and another line for “next generation.”

The Romney mistruth is that under seniors, he wrote “Cuts $716 Billion,” and under Romney he wrote “No change.” On the “next generation line, under Obama he wrote “bankrupt in 2024”; under Romney he wrote “solvent indefinitely.”

Now, in fairness, having sat through a budgetary brainstorming session or two at the vaunted PowerPoint-and-whiteboard altar, I get the guy's intent. The problem with his execution, however, is that even with just four entries there's always more than two numbers presented. A budget, by its very definition, requires these things called numbers. Sometimes we call them digits or sums or differences or, even as that Beverly Hillbilly Jethro Bodine knew, with some simple cipherin' one can at least drill down to "naught plus naught equals naught." Numerals, man.

There you have the Romney candidacy in photo form: a blank slate before a blank slate marking it with nonsense and erasing his mistakes with the flop sweat from his brow saying, "Just trust me."