Among the more comical episodes of the 2008 presidential campaign was the failed effort by Republicans to paint Barack Obama as "elitist" and "out of touch." Sadly for the GOP, that attack backfired hilariously when John McCain couldn't remember how many homes he owned, said a $5 million income made someone rich, and advocated tax cuts that would save he and his heiress wife hundreds of thousands annually.

Now three years later, Mitt Romney appears poised to fall into the same gold-plated trap. After decrying President Obama for referring to the sluggish economic recovery as a "bump in the road," GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney joked with jobless Floridians that "I'm also unemployed." Of course, one feeble attempt at humor doesn't make Mitt out of touch; that takes a lifetime of experience.

Here are just some of the ways you know Mitt Romney is out of touch:

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes about being unemployed.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he stages a photo-op with an unemployed single mom in Michigan - who also happens to be the mother of a paid campaign staffer.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he won't release his tax returns during any of his runs for office.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid -- "the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds "I'm not concerned about the voters" after Tim Russert asked him "why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you're spending?"

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, "downsizing and simplifying."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in, votes in and pays taxes in - twice.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are "the party of the monarchists."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he claims his five sons serve their nation by "helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he avoided combat duty in the rice fields of Vietnam by getting multiple deferments to perform his Mormon mission in the vineyards of France.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he was raised in upscale Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, claims he's just "a guy from Detroit" and then authors an op-ed piece titled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when calls for state pension funds to divest their holdings in companies doing business in Iran, only to learn that his former employer is doing just that.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration, only to reply "aw geez" when informed undocumented workers have been landscaping his home.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he starts uncomfortably chanting "who let the dogs out" during what looks like his only interaction with African Americans on the campaign trail.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he still chants "who let the dogs out" after the world learns he strapped the family dog to the roof of his car.

You know Mitt is out of touch when his own adviser Michael Murphy informs Massachusetts voters in 2005 that Romney's "been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he said of Osama Bin Laden in 2007, "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he panders to the NRA by proudly declaring "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life," only to clarify two days later "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when explained that while he placed Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's work among his favorite novels, "I'm not in favor of his religion by any means. But he wrote a book called 'Battlefield Earth' that was a very fun science-fiction book."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when says "My life experience convinced me that Ronald Reagan was right" and giving himself a 10 out of 10 on the conservative scale a decade after proclaiming during his 1994 Senate run, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he runs an ad in Spanish which concludes "soy Mitt Romney y apruebo este mensaje" (I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message) after demanding that "English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada."

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

Liberality: Toxic Swamp

$Blind In Texas$: The Corporatists vs. The American People

Pacific Views: Grafitti Art

pourmecoffee: Oddly compelling artistic video depicting every one of the 2053 nuclear explosions from 1945-1998

The Satirical Political Report: A parody of David Brooks' ideological parity

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Electronic Cerebrectomy, Dogs and Jeans, Of Course, I Could Be Wrong...

(h/t derekthered)

(Original story and full letter can be seen at The Washington Independent)

Much has come out about Andrew Breitbart's now-infamous "Hooker & Pimp" charade, and smear campaign against ACORN. Now that ACORN has been cleared and it has been proven that the video was heavily edited and that James O'Keefe was in fact not dressed as a pimp, the community organizing group is firing back and the rats are scattering, begging for help.

Hannah Giles, who posed as a hooker in Breitbart's hit piece, is now appealing to wealthy, Republican donors to help pay her legal fees. Her appeal has come in the form of a letter, (pictured above) which can be described as nothing less than a delusional, right wing rant that is sure to trigger your gag reflex. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Sean Hannity himself wrote it. Notice how she claims credit for the video, referring to it as "my undercover video."

Poor thing, she chose to lie down with dogs and now she's crying about the fleas.

They are calling them the baby faced robbers.

Police in Ohio are searching for two brazen girls, believed to be as young as 12 and 14, who robbed a bank in a Cincinnati suburb and escaped a police dragnet that included a helicopter and dogs.

The baby faced bank robbers, one believed to be 12 years old and the other 14 or 15, entered the 1st National Bank in Symmes Township, "walked up to the bank teller, and gave the teller a note demanding money," Steve Barnett, spokesman for the Hamilton County Sherriff's Office, said in a statement.

Neither of the girls carried a weapon, but "the teller gave the suspects an undetermined amount of U.S. currency," according to Barnett.

The bank was robbed at 3:19 p.m. There was one teller, but no customers in the bank at time. No one was injured. The girls were last seen fleeing in a easterly direction from the bank.

The girls weren't taller than five foot four. Talk about an easy robbery. Didn't they have to fill out a withdrawal slip at least to get the cash? Things just keep getting weirder and weirder.

Daily Motion and Steve Martin are holding a music video contest. The rules are, you have to use Steve Martin's song "Wally on the Run" as your soundtrack, and the video must have a dog or dogs in it. I don't expect to win, but I had fun with this.

Open thread below...

Newshoggers: 15 spines found. Several unaccounted for.

Pam's House Blend: McCain meets (in private) with Log Cabin Republicans

Petrelis Files: Wall Street execs aren't the only ones being compensated at obscene levels.

Booman Tribune: The Blue Dogs would be a whole lot more convincing in their Budget Hawkishness if they would stop handing the president hundreds of billions of dollars of supplemental funds to continue the war in Iraq.

Intrepid Liberal Journal: Renegade Justice - An interview with former US Attorney David Iglesias

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Voterwatch, NYCweboy, womenforjohnmccain (don't freak, it's satire), n e u f n e u f

Wired (h/t Rachel P.)

Wikileaks has published a second leaked Standard Operating Procedures manual that provides detailed instructions about how guards at Guantanamo's Camp Delta were instructed to treat detainees at the military prison in 2004. Like the 2003 Gitmo manual that Wikileaks published last month, this document is unclassified but still contains significant information about the isolation of prisoners, the use of dogs at Guantanamo, and forms of punishment for detainees. Wikileaks editor Julian Assange has put together a handy side-by-side comparison showing changes between the 2003 and 2004 documents.

Wikileaks also published a second document this week that details instructions for dealing with rendition flights involving the air transport of detainees. The document includes a diagram [pictured above] of an airplane used for renditions. The document is fairly large and Wikileaks hasn't had time to analyze it. Therefore the organization is asking readers to help them review it and post interesting findings.

Rude Pundit on Fran "No Question" Townsend.

With all the carnage in Iraq, let's also not lose sight of the absurd levels of gun violence here.

Despite the daily barrage of election noise, the power of the campaign narrative is still as important as ever.

Eric Alterman on FOX "dough" vs. FOX "show."

Rudy's ex-wives not the only "partners" who left him. Speaking of leaving, good thing there'll be no more servings of "Brownies" at the VA - we hope.

And maybe there's hope for future generations, at least with this child not left behind.

Hey, just asking, but if Michael Vick needlessly sends dogs to die, whaddya' think we should do with Dick and Dubya?

Guest blogged by Don Davis of the Satirical Political Report. Send links to Don at dgdavis41 AT optonline DOT net

NY Times (reg. req'd.):

Government investigators said Monday that byproducts from pet food contaminated with wheat gluten imported from China were used in chicken feed on some farms in Indiana.

The latest revelation came as part of the investigation into imported rice protein concentrate and wheat gluten that have been found to contain melamine and melamine-related compounds. Pet food contaminated with melamine has killed at least 16 cats and dogs and sickened thousands of others.

The Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration said that some 30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms in Indiana had received contaminated feed in early February and fed it to chickens within days of receiving it. All of those potentially affected chickens have since been processed.

The two agencies said they believed the likelihood of illness to people eating contaminated chicken was low because the contamination was most likely diluted. Without evidence of harm to humans, the agencies said they were not issuing recalls of any of the processed chicken products.

Why do I not feel comforted by the assurances from the federal agencies? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Soylent Green is in the food.

BREAKING: Americans ate 3 million melamine-tainted chickens!

The hits just keep on coming on this story. There's a chance that this gluten will show up in human food now. It's telling that the FDA has yet to release the name of the US distributor of this gluten.

David Goldstein has more:

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query. Del Monte issued a voluntary recall Saturday for several products under the Gravy Train, Jerky Treats, Pounce, Ol' Roy, Dollar General and Happy Trails brands.

Wheat gluten is sold in both "food grade" and "feed grade" varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only "food grade" gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption. Published reports have thus far focused on tainted pet food, but if the gluten in question entered the human food supply through a major food products supplier and processor, it could potentially contaminate thousands of products and hundreds of millions of units nationwide.

Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine said the FDA is not aware of any contaminated gluten that went into human food but said he could not confirm this "with 100 percent certainty." Wheat gluten is a common food additive used as a thickener, dough conditioner, and meat substitute. It is widely used as an additive in commercial bakery items and special purpose flours.

The FDA announced today that it has traced the contaminated wheat gluten to a single processor, Xuzhou Anying Biological Technology of Peixian, China, but has not released the name of the U.S. distributor who supplied the product to Del Monte, Menu Foods, Nestle Purina, and Hills Nutritional. In all, more than 70 brands and over 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food are now part of this massive recall, as well as at least one brand of dry cat food.

In related news, pet status as property may shift after recall (h/t Ilena Rose)

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