From a Romney adviser we get an astonishing peek into persevering denial:
[Mitt Romney] believes it's time to vet the president. He really hasn't been vetted; McCain didn't do it.
Such bloated nonsense--let's see, Obama has been a state senator, a U.S. senator, a presidential candidate for two years and for nearly four years president of the United States--is more pathological than nonsensical. In fact, though the charge is inherently, conspicuously nonsensical, it makes perfect sense to the emotionally stunted mind.
Obama doesn't rattle. And there's nothing so rattling to the bullying personality--hello, Mitt & Co.--than a targeted victim who refuses to be victimized and instead returns fire, times ten. Romney dispatched his primary opponents with small effort and enormous sums of cash, which helped to construct, day by day, a nominee fully convinced of his own might; then he collided with a heavyweight, who promptly began mopping the ring with him.
Romney's response? There must be something wrong with Obama--he's not the man he claims to be, he cannot be the man he claims to be, there's a something mysteriously elusive in him, deep, deep inside, that is intrinsically vulnerable to Romney's self-righteous power. If only Romney can uncover it.
Because bullies don't lose. Bullies can't lose--unless they're somehow tricked.