Support Mitt Romney!

That, you might think, would be the message the GOP was spreading among its faithful.  Right?  Wouldn't you think they'd build up to November by telling us what great guy Romney is:  devoted family man, business whiz, years of government experience, all that sort of thing.  Sure, they might soft-pedal the whole Massachusetts health-care thing, not to mention the dog on the roof rack, but there are lots of other things they could say about Mitt.  Surely more than just, "He won the primaries, so I guess -- ho, hum -- he's our candidate."

Yeah, you'd think.

Instead, when asked by a Republican voter to "make me fall in love" with Romney, John Boehner's answer was "No," adding "I wasn't elected to play God."  Apparently, it would take God to make the Republican base passionate about their presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch tweeted that unless he ditches all his old-time friends and advisors, Romney can't win, and the Wall Street Journal started picking on Romney for talking about the economy.  And for riding jet-skis, which apparently prove he's rich and out-of-touch.

Obviously, we now live in Freaky Funhouse Mirror World, the place where Sinead O'Connor was elected Pope and John Mason Neale used to tour with the Masonettes.  Does nobody remember Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment?

Fortunately, there is Gawker guest columnist "Mobuto Sese Seko," no Republican by any means, who comes rushing to Mitt's defense, reminding us that plenty of rednecks own jet-skis.  Of course, he then proceeds to destroy both Romney and his Republican critics, in one of the funniest attack screeds we've read in a while.  (Bill Kristol is "avidly wrong about things with a compulsion we usually associate with drug addiction;" Romeny himself is "Chauncey Gardiner in reverse ... a smart man who keeps saying profoundly stupid things.")  Still, at least Mobuto's trying to help out.

Anyway: we'd fully expected that, as the election year heated up, Romney would get slapped around a little.  We just thought it wouldn't be by his own team.