There is going to be a lot written about what Mitt Romney said last spring and what Mitt Romney said tonight and what other people said about whose idea it was to put Mitt Romney on TV tonight.
Discussions of this day will go on for years. Wanna know why?
Turn down the sound.
Watch Mitt's press pillory tonight as many times as you want. Transcribe it if you wish.
But watch it at least once with the sound off and you'll understand what all the old cab drivers meant when they say they thought Nixon won the debate against Kennedy when they heard it on the radio.
Stripped of spinnable words, the picture Mitt Romney's campaign offered America tonight was that of a pampered laird rolled out of bed to answer a summons, a terrified, unbriefed naif unready for prime or any other time.
No director could put that guilty boy in the arrogant elitist's eye. No painter could match the flame of madness in the cold duke's portrait.
Tonight, in video frames that need no narration, no ominous music beds, not even their original audio track, Mitt Romney has made the ultimate negative ad.
Against Mitt Romney.