You can always tell when someone doesn’t believe his own bullshit: his story keeps changing. And that is the case with Mitt Romney and this nonsense about Libya. Romney’s line about his premature and untrue attacks on the president is now pathetically trivial. First, according to Romney, Obama should be held responsible for every act of every government worker no matter how minor. Second, the embassy personnel should have taken the statement down after the attack.

Both these claims are ridiculous. Yes, Obama is ultimately responsible for the behavior of the State Department. But this is a small matter, and Romney’s claim reeks of desperation to find fault. Much worse, however, is his claim that in the aftermath of four murders, the number one priority of the embassy staff should have been to take that statement down from their web server. Jonathan Chait gets to the heart of this absurdity:

If Romney really believed this, it would be terrible. It would indicate that he is a man without empathy—a pedant of the worst kind. Of course, Romney doesn’t believe this. But that’s still pretty bad. It indicates he is a man who is so power hungry that he will use any excuse to attack the president. Of course, we already knew that.

[1] I look forward to reading Chait every day because of his humor. He is also a pretty insightful guy, although there are times when he’s a total idiot.