Romney's Death-Wish Birther Joke

With a tin ear and perfect mistiming, the GOP nominee-to-be makes an Obama birth joke to set up Democratic howls about Donald Trump, who is scheduled to make a “really amazing revelation” at the GOP convention Monday night.

“Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born,” Romney tells a Michigan crowd, while standing with his wife and running mate Paul Ryan. “Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

Trump may or may not stir up nervous GOP delegates with renewed bilge about Obama’s origins, but Romney multiplies the stupidity of having him at his anointment to stir up a “a disturbing tolerance for disturbing ideas,” in the words of former W speechwriter Michael Gerson.

The man with a death certificate of his own seems to have an unconscious political instinct for his own jugular.

His handlers must be writhing in agony.

Update: If there’s anything worse than making a lame jest that backfires, it’s trying to explain it away. Right on schedule, Romney compounds the gaffe by trying to parse it.

Now he adds that “there's no question about where he [Obama]was born. He was born in the U.S. This was fun about us, and coming home. And humor, you know--we've got to have a little humor in a campaign."

Romney’s right about that, but Jon Stewart he isn’t.