The one thing that will stick with me about Romney's speech last night was the astonishing amount of war-mongering. He essentially pledged to invade Iran and went so far as to piss all over Russia/Putin.

At the risk of sounding alarmist, I couldn't help but to think that Romney intends to super-charge the economy with a major war effort in the Middle East involving Syria and Iran. He can absolutely make the case that deficit-spending on this would-be war is critical for national security and the security of Israel, and even the deficit has to come second. The Republicans will go along with him because, let's face it, the Republicans love war.

I can't help but to think that the rest of the world trembled a little bit by Romney's bellicosity. Not in fear but in utter disgust.

He also said that while Obama killed Bin Laden, the world is less safe because of Iran. In other words, Iran is a bigger threat than al-Qaeda. See also my original point here.

Meanwhile, Romney spent a considerable chunk of the speech hitting the president on the usual. Romney re-delivered the universally debunked Medicare lie. He said the president embarked on an apology tour. He lied about the poverty level being a "record." He lied about middle class incomes. (FactCheck.org's report here.) All of the same nonsense. He insisted that we're not better off than we were four years ago -- you know, when we were careening towards the deepest recession in 80 years. Note to anyone who might buy into this hooey: the Dow in 2009 was around 6,500; the Dow today is 13,000; the GDP in 2009 was -8%; GDP today is +2%; the economy was shedding 800,000 jobs per month; today it's adding 200,000 per month. Judging by the most basic indicators, we're are better off. Significantly so.

Romney will get a small bump from this speech mainly from white conservatives who not only want to roll back the clocks to 1955, but who also have a longing for a president who looks like the central casting president they grew up with. The white guy with the dark hair, the blonde wife and the handsome kids -- all waving to the camera with balloons all around.