When His Lips Move

I just saw a video on the latest Real Time with Bill Maher, and have read about it, too, of Mitt Romney saying the following to a presumably rapt audience: he said that President Obama has yet to impose severe sanctions on Iran; that President Obama has never stated that nuclear Iran is unacceptable; that President Obama has not made it clear that all options for dealing with it remain on the table.

I don't kid myself. I know that Romney's audience will believe whatever they want, no matter the facts -- it is, after all, what their party has become. But what's the deal with Mitt Romney? I've said here a couple of dozen times that he's an unrepentant and constant liar; it's hardly news. But this is like criticizing the president for marrying a white girl, or saying he's a lousy dad to his two boys. Most of his other lies -- that Obama apologizes for America, that he's a socialist, that the stimulus failed, et cetera ad nauseum -- are pretty much the same crap you hear from every right-wing screamer, and some even take a moment's thought and a couple of sentences to falsify. But Romney's Iran lies are transcendent: so obviously false from the get-go -- Obama's sanctions on Iran are the severest ever, and he's been criticized for it; Obama has said countless times that all options are on the table; he's said as recently as a couple of days ago that he means it when he says a nuclear Iran is unacceptable -- that you have to wonder what's wrong with the guy.

These lies are blame-Obama-for-losing-the-Vietnam-War lies; they're Obama-never-went-to-college lies. They make birtherism seem sort of quaint; endearing almost (Silly people, you really can't believe a black guy is your president, can you? Here, sit down and have a nice, warm cup of tea. Do you take sugar?) This, though, is pathology of another sort, deep-seated and disturbing: a loose screw somewhere important, which ought to be disqualifying for national office. These lies are so, what?, bizarre, stupid, transparent, that I simply can't get my head around it: This man wants to be president.

How can any decent person (I take it on faith that there are some remaining who call themselves Republicans) vote for a guy like that? Not only a liar, but a stupid liar, a liar of lies that every single other person on earth who's not a hardcore teabagger knows are lies. I ask of the few opposing readers who leave comments here once in a while: I don't imagine there's anything that would convince you to vote for a moderate and thoughtful person like Barack Obama, maybe the only person in Washington seriously trying to solve problems, to bridge the chasm that divides the parties, to find some sort of balance between what we need from government and what we're willing or able to pay for. But if not that, isn't there a point at which you'd just not vote, when the Republican nominee-to-be is so alarmingly desolate?

In my area there was just an election for county executive. The Democrat is a big disappointment. The Republican is a joke. I didn't vote for either of them. Isn't it similarly obvious that there's something seriously wrong with Mitt Romney, that he's a mysteriously damaged person of no honor, a vote for whom degrades and diminishes the voter? Aren't there times when self-respect demands, at minimum, abstention?