Mitt Romney is a man who understands tweaking. To tweak -- principles, especially -- is important in politics. It's so important that he tweaks with a sledgehammer. Why play around? is Mitt's attitude. Let's tweak the bejesus out of this puppy.
The tweaking to which I refer has been, to date, twofold. First, Mitt had to please the reasonable people of the reasonable state of Massachusetts to have any reasonable chance of becoming governor. This he did, by becoming reasonable.
Then, one day, Mitt had a dream. It was a big dream. So big it called for a big tweak. He wanted to please even more people by becoming president of the United States. But first he had to re-tweak his original tweaking, because he was faced with having to please the unreasonable people of unreasonable Republican primaries to have any reasonable chance of becoming president.
What to do, what to do. And that's when Mitt's sledgehammer-tweaking really kicked in. He bludgeoned his first tweak. With cash.
Over a period of just a few months, Mitt busily signed bribes ... pardon me and Scooter all to hell: donation checks ... to theretofore ideologically displeased groups to reverse ... pardon again: prove ... himself as one of them -- a certified, dues-paying, ticket-punched, perfectly coiffed-dittoheaded-right-wing whacko. He gave ...
*$15,000 to Massachusetts Citizens for Life (once "critical" of him, it now "issue[s] favorable statements")
*$10,000 to the Massachusetts Family Institute (affiliated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, which endorses the family when not excusing its friends' adultery)
*$10,000 to Massachusetts Citizens for Limited Taxation (to its "surprise")
*$5,000 to the National Review to buy steak dinners for its raw-meat readers (some thing called "Evangelicals for Mitt" pitched in another cholesterol-dripping $5,000, but said the doubling down was "a coincidence")
*$35,000 to the Federalist Society ("an influential network of conservative lawyers" who genuflect daily to a bust of Robert Bork)
*and $25,000 to the Heritage Foundation ("a leading conservative research organization" that conducts some of the most misleading, conservatively researched garbage you'd ever want to read)
Opportunistic flip-flopping? Brazen whoring? Let's just say Mitt is flexible, and of course generous.
Should his presidential plans not work out, I suggest he become a paperback writer. For the Beatles seemed to have someone of Mitt's tweaking abilities and professional desperation in mind when they wrote its lyrics.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear,
And I need a job....
It's a thousand pages, give or take a few.
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I could make it longer if you like the style.
I can change it 'round....
If you really like it you can have the rights.
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it you can send it here,
But I need a break,
And I want to be a paperback writer.