Step Right Up!

- FACT:  The guy who created all those Ginsu Knife commercials 20 years ago died last week.
- FACT:  This week, Mitt Romney explains why the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate he enacted as governof Massachusetts bear no resemblance whatsoever to each other.
     COINCIDENCE?  I THINK NOT.  A huckster is a huckster is a huckster.  And when one huckster leaves this Earth, evidently his soul enters the body of another huckster.

     What kind of animal is this ACA mandate of which we speak?  Why, it's a penalty - anyone can see that.  No, wait!  I misspoke!  It's not a penalty - it's - it's a TAX!!  Yeah, that's it, a TAX!   But - but - the mandate I created in Massachusetts WASN'T a tax!  Why?  Um... Give me a minute... I've got it!  It wasn't a tax because the Supreme Court (glory hallelujah!), with whom I completely disagree about this whole subject, but which is still the SUPREME COURT (glory hallelujah!), hasn't specifically called it a tax.  Ergo, I DID NOT RAISE TAXES.  Are you following this? Whereas the Court HAS called the ACA mandate a tax, so that makes it a tax, even though (have I mentioned?) I completely disagree with the SUPREME COURT (glory, etc.) about this whole subject!  Am I making myself perfectly clear?
     I guess it's the constitutional right of all Americans, including presidential candidates, to run some absurd bullshit story up the flagpole and see if it flies, but - really.  Can't he do any better than THAT?  I'm embarrassed for the guy, and I don't even like him.  As firmly as I believe that there's a sucker born every minute, I also believe that even the suckers among us deserve better than a president who doesn't mind sounding like a guy playing three-card monte on a street corner.  Have a little dignity about it, Mitt.  When you pull this kind of stunt, all you do is make it painfully obvious to all that you can't really distinguish the two forms of mandate, because they're one and the same.  Face it - you have nothing up your sleeve.