Prouty, who thought long and hard about going public, said he brought a camera to the Romney fundraiser after Bill Clinton greeted the staff and allowed them to take pictures at a previous event:

The bartender who recorded Mitt Romney’s infamous 47% remarks at a fundraising dinner during the presidential campaign has come out of the shadows to talk about the recording that changed the course of the 2012 campaign.

“How big a decision was it for you to release the tape and to go through all of this,” Ed asked the videographer, whose identity will be revealed on-air Wednesday.

“It was tough,” he said. “And I debated for a little while, but in the end I really felt it had to be put out. I felt I owed it to the people who couldn’t afford to be there themselves to hear what he really thought.”

He went on to say:

“I simply wanted [Romney's] words to go out. And everybody could make a judgement based on his words and his words alone. The guy was running for the presidency and these were his core beliefs. And I think everybody can judge whether that’s appropriate or not or whether they believe the same way he does. I felt an obligation to expose the things he was saying.”

As predicted, many of the more obtuse Republicans (okay, Tea Partiers) believe their Election Day losses are due to having a candidate who just wasn't conservative enough. Some of them blame Karl Rove; others blame Republican leadership. They blame candidates who said stupid things about rape, but not the mentality that made them think that way in the first place.

In other words, it's not them. It's not their policies, their politics or their message. It's just that it wasn't delivered properly! Just keep telling yourself that, guys:

Mitt Romney's loss to President Obama on Tuesday unleashed predictable angst and debate in a Republican Party that must now decide how to attract a more diverse electorate.

But for conservatives who identify with the tea party, one emotion seemed to dominate all others: a white-hot anger at the Republican establishment. Tea party supporters are angry at the GOP for embracing as its presidential nominee a "moderate" like Romney. For undermining "true conservative" candidates. And for "choosing to ignore" the conservative agenda.

Wednesday, the political direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie gathered a group of disenchanted conservatives for a news conference in Washington. Calling Romney's loss "the death rattle" of the GOP, Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, said, "The battle to take over the Republican Party begins today."

He called upon the Republican leadership to resign for its part in the "epic election failure of 2012." That includes Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who has not announced whether he will run for the post again, House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

But he didn't stop there.

"In any logical universe," Viguerie said, "establishment Republican consultants such as Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie and Romney campaign senior advisors Stuart Stevens and Neil Newhouse would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again and no one would give a dime to their ineffective 'super PACs.'"

Rove is a pioneer in the formation of the outside groups that raised more than $1 billion for the election. Gillespie, a Romney strategist, worked with Rove in the George W. Bush White House. Newhouse is the Romney pollster who famously said last summer, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."

Viguerie's attack didn't sit well with many mainline Republicans, who blamed conservative "purists" and the tea party wing of the party for squandering the GOP's chance to regain control of the Senate.

Friday, for instance, conservative columnist Michael Barone told an audience at Hillsdale College's center in Washington that the tea party, while bringing some talented politicians to the fore, also brought some "wackos and weirdos and witches."

In a video of his comments, posted on the Daily Caller website, he singled out the GOP's losing Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana — Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock — who he said committed "unforced errors" with their remarks against abortion cases of rape. "Don't nominate dogs, OK?," he said.

Here's one for your Facebook page. It seems like Mitt Romney isn't the only Republican with Romnesia. Enjoy this collection of his current Republican boosted saying what they really think about the Mittster! Dear God, even Newt Gingrich is telling the truth.

With friends like these, huh, Mitt?

Good for you, Mrs. Greenspan! Way to fact-check this Romney surrogate and his attempt to push the "apology tour" smear the Republican candidate is trying to sell. Via Raw Story:

Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO), an adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was forced to modify his talking points on Tuesday after MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said she had fact checked the claim that President Barack Obama went on an “apology tour” and determined “it just didn’t happen.”

Mitchell pointed out that during an earlier segment, The New York Times‘ Elisabeth Bumiller had documented at least five issues where Romney had changed his position on foreign policy during Monday night’s final presidential debate.

“I think the opposite is true,” Talent argued. “Let’s just be fair for a second. I think the president is modifying his positions to come closer to Gov. Romney’s, and by the way, to come closer to the mainstream of American foreign policy.”

“He goes and does an apology tour,” the former senator continued. “And then last night he denies it was an apology tour.”

“Excuse me, Senator,” Mitchell interrupted. “I have fact checked the so-called ‘apology tour’ and it just didn’t happen.”

“Yeah, he went to four different cities, said America had dictated,” Talent insisted, before pivoting to say that the president had “resisted sanctions against Iran.”

“I’ve been covering the Iran sanctions at the U.N. in the P5-plus-1,” Mitchell noted. “After that initial attempt… to reach out and give Iran a chance to try to have an engagement — after that initial attempt, there was nothing but a move at the United Nations by Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to try to bring all of the allies aboard. The allies were demanding, ‘Make an overture, then we’ll be with you.’ And they ended up with the toughest sanctions ever.”

It's kind of hard to explain what's in Mitt's tax plan, but he did drop some hints about what wanted to do in last night's presidential debate -- in between incredibly dishonest but plausible-sounding statements about everything else:

• He wants to put a cap of $25,000 on total deductions - so if you have a large mortgage deduction, that's it.

• He wants to keep people who have savings from being taxed on them. But you're not taxed on savings, you're taxed on any interest they earn. Savings accounts are paying almost no interest now, so big whoop. But more to the point: Seriously, people still have savings? Talk about throwing us a bone!

• He says Obama wants bureaucrats telling people to use contraceptives. A Mormon nightmare, to be sure!

• Mittens attacked Obama for sending jobs to China -- and Obama didn't respond .by bringing up Sensata What the what?

• His solution to immigration reform? Let them be cannon fodder for our next war!

• POTUS sez: The difference between Mittens and Shrub? Bush wasn't as extreme on immigration, Medicare and banning funding for contraception.

• Random thought: In the state of Massachusetts, with more colleges per square foot than any state in the union -- including Harvard, M.I.T., Tufts, Boston University, Boston College, Smith, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke -- and Mittens had to form a special search committee to find "qualified" women for his administration?

• Mittens claims if he were president and one of our embassies was attacked, he would know what happened RIGHT AWAY. Because the right answers would be beamed into his head from outer space?

Jon Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador to China who was the closest thing the Republican party had to a credible presidential candidate (so naturally they rejected him), appeared on Morning Joe to criticize Mitt Romney's reaction to the latest violence in the Middle East:

Former U.S. Ambassador to China and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said on Friday that Mitt Romney’s response to the violent protests in the Middle East and North Africa posed a “problem” for the man he endorsed several months ago.

As protests raged outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya earlier this week left four Americans dead, Romney’s decision to criticize the Obama administration was ill-advised and was a lost opportunity, Huntsman said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“This was an opportunity to instruct, to elucidate, to educate, to talk about how you put the pieces back together again in North Africa and the Middle East,” he said. “Not to condemn, not to criticize, not to turn it into a political event, but to explain to the American people what we're going to do during a time of need, during a time of crisis, during a time of uncertainty.”

In a time where relations between the U.S. and the Arab world is strained, and questions surrounding the broader implications of the Arab Springs are prevalent, Huntsman said that Romney should have explained his position on the democratic uprisings of late.

This was truly one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen on live television, and it just got worse as it went on. No one will be talking about Mittens' speech -- they'll be talking about this one, in which Clint Eastwood veered from left, to right, to libertarian, to old man with Lipitor brain fog who was up past his naptime.

(Nicole): It was truly bizarre and cameras caught Paul Ryan cringing in the audience, a reaction shared by many of us watching. The Romney campaign said it was unscripted, but think about it, someone had to know enough about the shtick to put that empty chair there for Eastwood to talk to. So the Romney campaign knew what would happen at some level and thought that this would be a good lead up to the candidate taking the stage. That's hard to wrap my brain around.

As to the empty chair, the Obama administration wins Twitter last night with this response.
Watch and read the whole sad thing:

Here's the full transcript of Eastwood's remarks:

EASTWOOD: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt.

(APPLAUSE) I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. That is not really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

(APPLAUSE)

So -- but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around...

(APPLAUSE)

Jon’s here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.

So I -- so I’ve got Mr. Obama sitting here. And he’s -- I was going to ask him a couple of questions. But -- you know about -- I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles.

They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying.

(LAUGHTER)

EASTWOOD: I was even crying. And then finally -- and I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously -- this administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.

(APPLAUSE)

So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them?

I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just -- you know -- I know -- people were wondering -- you don’t -- handle that OK. Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn’t close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo -- why close that, we spent so much money on it. But, I thought maybe as an excuse -- what do you mean shut up?

(LAUGHTER)

OK, I thought maybe it was just because somebody had the stupid idea of trying terrorists in downtown New York City.

(APPLAUSE)

I’ve got to to hand it to you. I have to give credit where credit is due. You did finally overrule that finally. And that’s -- now we are moving onward. I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK. You know, I mean -- you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how did it -- they did there for 10 years.

(APPLAUSE)

But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think that, when we get to maybe -- I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you know, he says, “Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?”

(APPLAUSE)

And I thought -- I thought, yeah -- I am not going to shut up, it is my turn.

(LAUGHTER)

So anyway, we’re going to have -- we’re going to have to have a little chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these promises -- I wondered about when the -- what do you want me to tell Romney? I can’t tell him to do that. I can’t tell him to do that to himself.

(APPLAUSE)

You’re crazy, you’re absolutely crazy. You’re getting as bad as Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

Of course we all now Biden is the intellect of the Democratic party.

(LAUGHTER)

Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

(LAUGHTER)

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Remember when Hurricane Katrina was supposed to be punishment from God over abortion? What other possible explanation is there for the potential hurricane headed toward Tampa? I think the Baby Jesus is very, very mad at the Republican party!

TAMPA, Fla. – Mitt Romney’s quest to formally win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination may come two days earlier.

Plans are underway for Mr. Romney to be nominated on Monday – not Wednesday as previously thought – because of a potential threat from Tropical Storm Isaac and concerns about a possible disruption during the roll call vote from Ron Paul supporters at the Republican National Convention next week.

It is a change in the script from previous conventions, with the formal nomination on the eve of the acceptance speech. It is a formality, and Mr. Romney will still deliver his acceptance speech on Thursday evening, but the change would carry significance because Mr. Romney could accept general election money sooner.

“The roll call will take place on Monday,” said Jim Dyke, a convention spokesman, who dismissed suggestions that the schedule had changed. “We will go through the roll call in alphabetical order all the way through.”

As soon as Mr. Romney officially becomes the party’s presidential nominee, he can have access to the general election money he has spent months raising, putting him on the cusp of tapping into a significant financial advantage for the final two months of the race.

The convention schedule, according to discussions underway among party officials here, has as much to do with a desire to keep an orderly convention next week as it does with Isaac, the storm expected to develop into a hurricane as it moves toward Florida.

The roll call vote is also coming on Monday to get the official business of the convention out of the way, aides said, so it does not distract from the broader themes of the convention. The campaign had hoped that the television networks would cover the convention on Monday because Ann Romney is delivering her marquee speech that evening, but so far the networks have declined.

This isn't new, he's backed defense cuts for a long time. But if he gets enough of the caucus behind him (after all, this is the same position taken by the progressive caucus, so the numbers might work), there goes the bipartisan wet dream of a Grand Bargain - again. (Yay!) Sounds like he wants Paul Ryan to keep his powder dry for later tax reform:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, his would-be vice president Paul Ryan, and defense hawks in Congress are wrong that savings can't be found in the U.S. defense budget, according to Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform, who said that he will fight using any new revenues to keep military spending high.

"We can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and keeps everybody afraid to throw a punch at us, as long as we don't make some of the decisions that previous administrations have, which is to over extend ourselves overseas and think we can run foreign governments," Norquist said Monday at an event at the Center for the National Interest, formerly the Nixon Center.

But Ryan's views are at odds with those of Norquist and other budget hawks, who argue that defense budgets can be trimmed. Ryan's budget plan provides for increasing military spending and doesn't suggest any tradeoff or specific defense reforms.

"Other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense without wasting money," Norquist said. "I wouldn't ask Ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment."

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What more can I say? The comedy continues to write itself:

CHARLOTTE — Mitt Romney requested “several” years of tax returns from his potential running mates, a senior adviser to the candidate said Saturday, suggesting that those considered for the ticket may have been required to reveal more financial documents that the candidate himself.

In a briefing with reporters in Virginia Saturday, senior adviser Beth Myers, who was charged with headed the vice president selection process, declined to specify exactly how many years of tax returns were required, saying only that “several” were requested.

Several, by definition, implies more than two years.

Tim Pawlenty told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” this morning that he gave “several” years of tax returns to Mitt Romney during the vice presidential vetting process. Pawlenty said he didn’t remember the exact number of years. He later said he gave Romney a “bunch” of tax returns.

When pressed about what “several” meant, Pawlenty said “We don’t get into the details of the vetting process.”