Remember that best friend you had in junior high? That's right, the one who knew everybody, and was really popular, and you couldn't believe she was your best friend.
She seemed to always be where you were going, wanting to know what you were doing. Even though she had already done it a thousand times before (roller skating, going downtown to meet boys, buying beer) she was always happy to be doing it with you. That brand new Beatles movie? She had special permission to see it before it opened up in the theaters, so she had already seen it six times. And the concert you couldn't get tickets for? Not only did she have tickets, but she went backstage after the concert and met the whole group.
Turns out, she was your best friend because nobody else liked her. Nobody else liked her, not because she got to do all this stuff they didn't do, but because she was a liar.
You were gullible, because you could never imagine someone telling a story about themselves that was totally untrue. So it must be true, right?
This is the lot of the American voter. Mitt Romney promises to be our new best friend, even though we heard him say he didn't like 47 percent of us, that he thought we were lazy and not worth him paying attention to.
But now he likes us. Even though he knows all the important people in the country, and the world, and they all want to know what he is thinking, he likes us best.
Except that all the important people in the world don't particularly like him either. They pretend to be his friend because he might be able to get him stuff, like tax breaks. Believe me, they aren't crazy about him either, because they know he is a liar.
Why do they know he is a liar? Because they are liars too. Unlike your junior high school "best friend", Mitt had an important family, so he was able to go to important schools, and then become very rich and important. And being very rich and important makes other people want to be your friend. Even though they don't like you that much.
And liars lie because they want people to like them. For Mitt, just as with my old junior high friend, he would say anything to get someone to like him. And he doesn't have any idea how ridiculous some of those lies are.
For example, Mitt's "binders full of women" was not just a case of Bush-era word-mangling. Fact is, the story was a lie. And whether you are a one-percenter, or the rest of us, Mitt Romney will lie to you. Those one percenters know that, which is why most of them didn't support him till he was the only game in town.
But the sad thing is, a lot of the rest of us really want Mitt to like us. And since we don't lie, as a rule, we can't imagine that Mitt would lie to us. So we conveniently forget what he said to the other guys just days ago. And even though the other guys are rich and important, they pretend he is not telling us how much he likes us right now. Because they know that liars like Mitt fool a lot of the people a lot of the time. And, lets face it, he only has to fool us until November 7.
Oh, and his new best best friend, Paul Ryan? Didn't like Romney either. But we are finding out pretty quick that Ryan doesn't mind telling a lie either, whether it's about Medicare or his best marathon time, or stopping by the soup kitchen to help out.
So step back, take a deep breath, and make your choice wisely, because if we choose wrong we may regret the best new friends we have for the next four years.
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