Two Smug White Men: A Match Made in Heaven

Narcissus was such a good-looking guy everyone fell in love with him. Yet the arrogant Narcissus treated everyone with contempt. Nemesis, hoping to teach Narcissus a lesson, lured him to a pond where Narcissus promptly fell in love with his own reflection. Predictably as all Greek tragedies do, this one ended in death—by gazing at one's self.

Mirror mirror on the wall...

Ever since Mitt Romney made it onto the national stage his appearances have been marked by fumbles and gaffes. He's made so many it's hard to keep up. During Mitt's trip abroad he managed to insult the British to such an extent the headline "Mitt the Twit" ran in tabloids and #RomneyShambles was the highest trending # during the opening of the London Games.

In Israel Romney racially insulted Palestinians by misquoting the best-selling book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. The mis-attribution was so bad that the author, Jared Diamond, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, saying "that [what Romeny said in Israel] is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it."

Now Joe Biden is known to make gaffes on the stump. But a Biden gaffe is usually comprised of some element of the truth, blurted out at an inopportune moment. However, when everything that falls out of Romney's mouth is ill-informed, insensitive, and/or ignorant, these aren't gaffes any longer. These are signs of stupidity.

Now, I know this country loathes pegging a white man as stupid although we have no problem doing that to a woman, relentlessly...

between you and me, I think Palin is a helluva lot more savvy than Romney will ever be.

Being white, male, and privileged gives one access to lots of things, as well as people who are willing to overlook your lack of intellectual prowess.

Not surprising, then, that Romeny should pick someone of like-mind for a running mate. Paul Ryan has been touted as the future of the Republican Party. He was the "brains" behind the GOP budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 know known as the "Ryan Budget." The Ryan Budget is being seen as the ultimate undoing (or Nemesis, if you will) to the Romeny–Ryan ticket by Democrats for all the reasons Nobel laureate Paul Krugman states in his latest blog:

Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense... This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.

Krugman goes on to say that the reason Ryan is even is considered a player in Washington is that "Beltway media, [needs a] conservative wonk they can say nice things about." And in a turn of phrase I believe captures Ryan's brain-less-abs-of-steel-charm; "using a soft-focus style to play into their [the media's] desire."

This is exhausting, and I haven't even gotten to the social issues yet. Suffice to say Ryan is against all rights pertaining to ownership of your vagina, and civil rights of your queerness. His voting record was itemized by Feministing yesterday and, of course, Maddow dug into it on her show last night.