Did you hear that Mutt Romney wants an apology from President Obama for saying bad things about Bain Capital?

by Ken

And darn it, I think he should get an apology. The reasoning is a little shaky, I admit, but as best I can tell it goes something like this: How dare that Obama attack the work I've done when he should be talking about his own record, just the way I plan to endlessly attack the work he's done and consider it indecent for him to, uh, talk about my record.

Okay, maybe I haven't gotten it quite right after all. Still, isn't Mutt entitled to an apology from the president? For that matter, maybe even one from all of us. After all, we may not be producing much else these days in these here United States, but one thing we're producing in record quantities is apologies. Everyone, it appears, wants one, and everyone, it appears, feels by God entitled to one. I wouldn't be surprised if a right to one weren't soon discovered in the Constitution, at least as regards right-wingers. (I think if anybody can unearth that right, we've got the Supreme Court team to do it.)

Of course apologies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries aren't what they once were. In the old days, when you were moved -- or coerced -- to apologize, you actually expressed regret for something you had said or done. Nowadays, right-wingers go bonkers if you so much as mention stuff they've said or done. In any case, the modern-day baseline apology extends only to expressing regret if so-and-so or such-and-such was offended. And since its intellectual hooligans like Mutt who -- by upholding vows never to knowingly tell the truth in public unless there's truly no better alternative -- have paved the way for the debasement of the apology, it seems only fitting that he get all the apologies he deserves.

I know the president pays a lot of people big bucks to cram words in his mouth, but I thought I'd just offer some suggestions.

Heighdy-ho, Mutt, Barack here. Look, I'm really sorry if you were offended by my utterly truthful discussions of the job-killing work you did at Bain, struggling so hard to suck the life out of the economy for the enjoyment and profit (and I do mean profit) of the financial elites. And as long as I'm apologizing, let me say that I'm sorry you're such a ruthless, greedy, lying son of a bitch.

Can we shake on that?

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