If you thought “I like to fire people” was bad, try this, from this morning’s “Today” show on NBC:

MATT LAUER: When you said that we already have a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy, I’m curious about the word “envy.” Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?

MITT ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a President encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 per cent versus one percent—and those people who have been most successful will be in the one per cent—you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it.

LAUER: Yeah but envy? Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as “envy,” though?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Wow. I don’t suppose it’s necessary to go into detail about why this is appalling on every level, but really. The most successful are the one per cent? The two categories are identical? Does that mean that if, say, you’re a teacher, a firefighter, a cop, or a soldier (or simply a regular person whose dad wasn’t the C.E.O. of an automobile company), then by definition you cannot be successful? Or only (let’s be fair) that you just can’t be “most successful?”

And if the only permissible venues for discussing the skyrocketing, Ugandan-level growth of income inequality in the United States are “quiet rooms,” where are these rooms? And why are they quiet? Are they quiet because they’re not open to the public?

People will be so awfully noisy. And their hair—ugh. So untidy.

(H/t: ThinkProgress.)