entitled attitude is relevant to the election at hand. I say it absolutely is, not necessarily because of the incidents themselves, but because they are more evidence that the man lacks empathy and any sense that others less fortunate than he inhabit this place we call the United States.

Ralph Reed has a different opinion. After enumerating all of Romney's wonderful qualities, Reed actually had the nerve to ask who would want to serve "if they know people will be dumpster diving into your high school or prep school?"

Wow, really? Because nothing says dumpster diving like half the Republican Party claiming Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, that he is really a Kenyan usurper, and the other half claiming that he's Muslim but somehow influenced by an inflammatory Christian pastor in the church he attended for 20 years, and other assorted untrue stories they flog every damn day. Nothing says dumpster diving like pointing at his time in Indonesia as a time where he was indoctrinated by imams, or the nonsense they spewed just this week about how he dealt drugs in college.

So here is Ralph Reed, calling a story corroborated by five independent witnesses and Romney himself "dumpster diving" while he and his band of religious thugs are largely responsible for the lies, rumors, and smears they laid upon Barack Obama for the last six years or so. Who would want to serve, indeed?

I've got a proposal for Ralph Reed. He can man up and tell his birther eliminationist wingnut followers to recant all the lies they've told and magnified about Barack Obama, and I'll shut up about the true stories of Mitt Romney's past. Better yet, why doesn't Reed just crawl back under the rock he came from?

Transcript follows below the fold.

REED:  Well, I think the thing -- first of all, the young man in question is dead, all right, so he's not even able to speak to this, number one. 

Number two, it was a half century ago.  This isn't -- this doesn't involve his public record, all right. 

And the other thing that it really underscores, George, is how desperate they are to try to tear this guy down.  I mean this is somebody who has been faithful to the same woman for 42 years, raised a wonderful family. 

Whatever you think of him politically, turning around Bain consulting, building Bain Capital into one of the most respected private equity organizations in the nation, turning around the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, outstanding job as governor of Massachusetts.  This is the kind of man that you would want your daughter to marry.  This is the kind of guy you would want to be a business partner with. 

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Part of the reason --

REED:  If I could just finish, here's my concern.  If this is what we're going to do to candidates, George, who will want to serve?  Who is going to want to put their name on the ballot if they know people will be dumpster diving into your high school or prep school?