Ok, let me see if I have this down right:
Mitt Romney performs another in a long series of actions suggesting that he was born in a corporate board room and rarely leaves corporate board rooms to interact with non-corporate-boardroom-dwelling human beings except when absolutely necessary, such as to avoid saying much of anything in a Republican debate.
This is understandable, because when Mitt Romney appears encounters real people who don't belong to country clubs, his circuitry sometimes fries and he may latch onto the first popular culture reference that occurs to him.
This is a problem, we all realize because eventually the reference that pops into his head is not going to be the Baha Men, but something from Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. (Or maybe he'll suddenly think of Jim Morrison flashing a concert audience. The possibilities are horrifying.)
And so David Axelrod goes on the news and tells us that he'll fire any staffer who calls Romney "weird." Apparently staffers who call Romney "white" are safe -- for now.
Some might see this as Axelrod assuming the "Cringe" posture in the not-so-ancient martial art of "dem-fu," where one fights by not fighting and wins by not winning, as depicted in the holy writ that I shall playfully refer to as "My New Fighting Technique is Undetectable." ("Languid Sword" technique, indeed!)
Others argue (and click the comments to the diary linked in the intro for more of this than you can count) that Axelrod is being fiendishly clever, and that by saying that he will not abide people calling Romney weird, because that brings his religion into it and that's not OK (note: Romney's religion being Mormon, not Weirdness), he is actually subtly calling attention to Romney's weirdness, the way that if you encounter someone who is missing a lower jaw you have to pay very close attention not to look at the lower jaw area. "Folks, when you meet Mr. Romney, be very careful not to look at the you-know-what area!"
I said not to look!!!
I don't know who's right about what Axelrod is doing here. I don't know if he's being fiendishly clever or knavishly timid. I just know that, in apparent deference to the sensibilities of Mormons -- who in my experience tend not to be weird, although on occasion unwholesomely wholesome -- that I cannot note that Mitt Romney is weird, although he is weird, and not because he is a Mormon.
And if I say this I am harming the Democratic party, unless I say it without saying it, and condemn my almost saying it because it makes people think that Mitt Romney is Mormon rather than a Bubble Boy who can be infected by almost any exposure to real American people and the impact of the policies he supports. But it's good to keep the idea alive without saying to it.
Well, maybe I can do Axelrod one better. Saying "Romney is not weird" puts "Romney and weird" in the same sentence, and that is close to "you're fired" city. So I think that I need to come up with something that is one further step attenuated from claiming that Romney is weird, so that I and other fightin' an' spittin' Democrats cannot be accused of calling Romney weird, however weird he may be (and, really, he's no more weird than he is rich, white, or clueless.) What to do, what to do?
How can I say what is in my heart, what is clear before my eyes: that Mitt Romney is weird, not because he is a Mormon, but because the clench-jawed, eye-popping, quivering rigidity with which he meets challenges coming from outside of his comfort zone is almost unparalleled in contemporary American politics, and that this matters? How can I attenuate my message even further, so that when Mitt Romney does things like this again, and again and again and again, I can comment on them without running afoul of the Democrats "we'll fire anyone who says that Mitt Romney is white" fighting posture?
Got it!
Axelrod is weird.