TOPSY-TURVY.  A lot of people marveled when Dr. Keith Ablow told the world, apparently with a straight face, that Newt Gingrich's multiple marriages were a sign that he'd make a good President. But as I have discussed here many times, part of the conservative project, especially since the multiple Republican scandals of 2006, has been to turn conventional ideas of decent human behavior on their head. Conservatives have long been in the habit of dispensing Values yak but, since some of them started getting caught with their pants down in spectacular ways, they have become equally accustomed to defend swinishness, unless it's exhibited by Democrats, it which case it's back to the yak.

(I think this informs their excitement over Charles Murray's latest prole-uplift project: It implies that their own Belmont crew, while not as butch as the Fishtown proles they wish to redeem, are morally superior to them because the stats show they stay married and "defer gratification" better. Statistical superiority is something they can all share. Rising tide and all that.)

Anyway, here's the latest example from Jason Lee Steorts, talking at National Review about Mitt Romey's tendency to reveal himself as a clueless rich prick:

It’s peculiar that Romney so often gets criticized for seeming inauthentic. A gaffe such as today’s is the essence of authenticity: The problem, politically speaking, is precisely that he failed to calculate about how his remark would be received. Ditto his comment about liking to be able to fire people. It was all too authentic when he revealed that $10,000 would be a trivial sum for him to wager. And there is a deal of authenticity in the naked ambition of a statement such as “I can’t have illegals, for Pete’s sake — I’m running for office!”

Maybe there is some angel out there who could be, without effort, precisely what we want our politicians to be. But what we really seem to expect of them — for we well know they aren’t angels — is a believable sort of fakery. (Romney sometimes does fake it, of course, but he doesn’t seem believable — e.g., his pink-slip comment.)

I especially like the "maybe there is some angel out there..." bit.  It not only suggests that it is we who have let Mitt down by indulging all those fake populists for so long -- it also suggests some wonderful bumper sticker ideas: He may be a prick but at least he's not pretending! If you were that rich you'd be an asshole too! etc.