The president is angry.

The president is an angry man.

The president is black.

The president is an angry black man.

That is the four-point plan on "the economy" on which Willard Romney apparently intends to run for president for a while. For the past week or so, beginning shortly after committing himself fully to zombie-eyed granny-starving while a baffled nation went, "whaaaaa?" in 300-million-part harmony, Romney has become more and more convinced that he is being treated shabbily by the political process and that, at the heart of this untoward disrespect from The Help, is that... person who currently has the job for which Willard has applied. He is simply not going to stand for this sort of thing anymore, and he is going to informthat... person that there are things that simply... are... not... done. And he is sure that the genuine folks among The Help — the ones that know their place, and that know what people like Willard Romney have done for them, and who are properly grateful for it — will rise to support him.

"If you look at the ads that have been described and the divisiveness based on income, age, ethnicity and so-forth, it's designed to bring a sense of enmity and jealousy and anger and this is not in my view what the American people want to see," Romney said.

Ethnicity?

And so forth.

Ethnicity?

And so forth.

If he blows that dog-whistle any louder, Seamus may return from that great roof-rack in the sky.

This should surprise absolutely nobody, because, if there's one thing candidate Romney has demonstrated, it is that he really is quite a remarkable liar. Romney's ran the basic bread-and-butter Republican playbook all throughout the primaries and he's still running it this summer. The meretricious use of the president's "You didn't build it" line. The truthless welfare baiting on the commercials. Sooner or later, he was going to get around to this particular line of bullshit because it's the obvious next step. Asking a Republican presidential candidate to abandon race-baiting entirely is to ask for an awful lot of 13-second Republican stump speeches. Asking Willard Romney to do it is to assume that there is muck so foul that he will not immerse himself in it to be president. Unless Curiosity finds mud on Mars, you're pretty much out of luck there.

(And not for nothing, but this is pretty much the way things worked when he was governor, too. He spent a lot of time wondering why he couldn't just fire the state legislature and outsource the courts to Indonesia.)

There was nothing Romney wouldn't do in business to make a buck. Why should we be surprised that he campaigns the same way? The real difference, of course, is that the president and his campaign are not luckless steelworkers or paper-company employees, anonymous to the people who keep the Bain ledgers and powerless to the people in the lovely house by the Pacific shores. They can hit back. Hard. And they don't feel obligated to ask his permission to do so.

"The president's campaign has put out a campaign that's talking about me and attacking me. I think it's just demeaning to the nature of the process, particularly when we face the kinds of challenges we face."

And it's his process, dammit. He can show you the receipt.

Since you can count on Rafalca's hooves the number of times in his life that Willard Romney has been in a fair fight, it's no great shock to discover that, since he can't fight hard, he'll fight dirty, because winning is not something you earn. Winning is something you inherit. And he knows that you know it, too. Be grateful. Thank Willard Romney just... for... being... himself.

EARLIER: Romney's Outrageous Outrage at Made-Up Obama Rage >>

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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