Sarkozy **married** Carla Bruni?!

He's lost his mind. (Men, feel welcome to disagree.) She's a walking time-bomb.

Oh, she's a time-bomb, alright. But as the French might say (dangling a cigarette from a gesturing hand), he is a man, what can he do? The appropriate response to Sarkozy is to say, "You're insane. You're nuts. You are a madman and a slave to your hormones. I understand completely. Congratulations."

On the surface, I agree with the repeated assertion here(TNR) that Mitt is the class nerd or dweeb. But those who know him--the governors, the other candidates, many folks in Massachusetts(where I have spent most of my life)--experience another side of Mitt beneath the genteel facade: ruthlessly ambitious, vicious in opposition with nothing out of bounds, manipulatively self-serving, say anything to make the sale and worry about performance afterward, and whiny. He would throw his grandmother off a cliff if he thought it would be to his advantage, in this case, to get him a vote. And he will still look so innocent. He seemed almost shocked by McCain's distortion of his record on Iraq, which he and supporters call "lies" and "McVain is a liar."  But it is exactly exactly the same as Mitt throws at McCain, calling comprehensive immigration reform "amnesty". Judis's column today not withstanding, immigration is still a pretty big issue for conservatives. Romney has used McCain's thoughtful and bipartisan approach to a complex problem to bludgeon  him with the base and to rile-up a significant segment of the conservative primary voters and caucusers.

Another issue related why to so many folks don't like Romney: A disproportionate number of Romney supporters are out there in the Republican, conservative, and news blogospheres slinging the lowest kind of slime towards other candidates. I spend a hours every day reading and commenting on these blogs. There is a certain amount of slimeing, nasty name-calling, rumor-mongering, and potty humor directed towards most candidates by their competitor's supporters. The most sicko and often multi-bigoted  among these bloggers seem to be distributed somewhat equally and equally limited, except among Romney's supporters. They feel angry and vitriolic about each loss, blaming media bias and unfair advantages of the other candidates and so they decide to depersonalize and demonize Mitt's opponents. While, again, there are partisans of all  of the candidates of both parties, and some who get "carried away' in their vitupretiveness, there is not nearly as much violent and degrading crap emanating form any of the other campaigns's supporters. Because the "other" has been depersonalized if not dehumanized, there are no limits on the nastiness. Interestingly, it is actually rather rare from Huckabee's supporters, who you'd think would be of the type. Frankly, I've wondered if it is a Morman thing. And I've mentioned that on several blogs and allowed myself to be convinced that it is a human thing. So its something I can't fully articulate yet. But it concerns me: It is a level of depersonalization that reminds me just a little too much of the language of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and Serbia. Still, why does Mitt attract this kind of supporter, who can do no wrong in hurting or harming their opponents.

Just one more thought on this: One of the real shockers to me in following Republican blogs and news is that these folks, the conservative Mitt supporters--and there are a fair number of them-- hate John McCain in part because opposes torture. Isn't that shocking?