August 25, 2012 11:10 PM UTC

We Are Officially Scraping Bottom

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Huffington Post reports, dog whistle heard loud and clear:

Romney drew gasps from reporters when, during a speech in Michigan, he said, “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

Romney was unsurprisingly criticized by the Obama campaign, but [Rush] Limbaugh clearly loved it. He played the soundbite twice, shouting, “”Right on, right on, right on!”

He added that he thought Romney was “test-driving” the line for further use, and connected it to the upcoming Republican convention…

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Boston Globe:

Mitt Romney appeared to joke on Friday about debunked claims over President Obama’s citizenship, telling a crowd in his native Michigan that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate.” Romney reminded the crowd in suburban Detroit that he and his wife, Ann, were born in Michigan. “They know that this is the place where both of us were born and raised,” he said.

Romney had generally avoided getting into the debate over Obama’s birth certificate, which has become a prominent issue in some conservative circles. Friday’s comment appeared to be a nod to those who continue to question whether Obama was born in the United States even though he has released a birth certificate showing that he was born in a hospital in Hawaii.

In a later interview with CBS News, Romney said the comments were meant as a joke, and he was not questioning the president’s citizenship.

“Of course, a little humor always goes a long way,” Romney said. “It was great to be home, to be in a place where Ann and I had grown up. The crowd loved it and got a good laugh.” [Pols emphasis]

There’s really not much we can add to this other than the title, folks. Whether meant as a ‘harmless’ joke, or the subtle but very much intended nod to the xenophobic underpinnings of the theories about President Barack Obama’s perfectly well-documented citizenship this ‘joke’ seems to represent, the GOP’s nominee for the presidency has taken the 2012 election season to an embarrassing new low–after several weeks of embarrassing new lows.

Like bringing in Paul Ryan to defend the GOP on Medicare, or having Tom Tancredo carry the de facto Republican flag in the 2010 gubernatorial race, it’s almost like some kind of pre-emptive headfake–a way of desensitizing voters to the worst of the GOP’s recent history.

We know that sounds crazy, but if you’ve got a better explanation, we’re all ears.

Because it’s either eight-dimensional mind games, or the compounding disaster it looks like.