So I click over to the Corner to see how they are spinning Romney’s fresh troubles. I like John O’Sullivan’s moxie. Basically, Romney should say 1) he’s not backing off; 2) in saying 47% of Americans pay no income tax, thereby implying they are freeloaders, i.e. pay no taxes, he was just forgetting that up is up, not down. Could happen to anyone. “We pay so many taxes that we sometimes forget how many and how much, as I briefly did.” 3) – 8) are some suggestions about how to finesse 2). We need to lower taxes on these freeloaders! Freeloaders are made of taxpayers!

But I think the really important step is probably 9). I can’t imagine why O’Sullivan didn’t give this step its own number. So far as I can tell, it’s absolutely crucial to the whole scheme not coming down around Romney’s ears. “Romney should then leave without taking questions.”

It almost seems unnecessary, but Freeloadergate opens the way for attack ads suggesting Romney is gearing up to expand the War On Women into a three-front war against Women, Children and the Elderly. (It’s like the Romney campaign is turning into one big parody inversion of the protocols for abandoning ship.) Just do a montage of pictures of smiling children – at play, in school, with their families – and nice retirees – in their homes, pictures of their younger, working selves around them – with a brutal ‘FREELOADER’ stamped across each face. And the audio of Romney over it all.

The wages of talking such nonsense really ought to be getting blasted with ads that take the nonsense at face value. Let Romney clean up the mess.