If one can magically "resign" from any morass after the fact (truly, long after), Mitt Romney shouldn’t only run for president but extraterrestrial, time-shifting Miracle Man. This notorious policy shape-shifter graduates now to time-shifter, as Mitt’s expanding Etch-a-Sketch, with demonic force, dares distort history. Who but a flimflamming devil plays on simultaneous, dual personalities – one, the hard-driving taskmaster who approved Bain’s outsourcing factory (all election documents to the contrary); second, the latter-day, heroic invention: the public-spirited, Olympic overseer who'd never outsource a fly – and who, per one Romney shill, “retroactively resigned” before the mitt hit the fan.    

Romney’s transparent evasion “resigns” from something, though not early enough from Bain. How about “reality for the rest of us” and that’s what now slapping this stonewaller upside the head. So, let’s hear the thundering call, “where’s that retroactive resignation,” far more appropriate than yahoos demanding infinite proof of Obama’s Hawaiian birth. 

Think of the possibilities, if not imponderables. Wouldn’t everyone love instant free passes from mortifying blunders we need no longer shoulder, especially because most consequences are unknowable in advance? The Romney “resignation” farce is a classic logical fallacy, formally post hoc ergo propter hoc for "after this, therefore because of this." I prefer apt religious jargon, served up as a blameless, self-righteous “immaculate resignation.” 

Let the world behold: a new teaching from the Angel Moroni and thus a new Mormon Doctrine: Self-Absolution Long After the Fact. Does this not mimic GOPThink today – invent preposterous nonsense that gets fed to the idiot base, then repeat interminably? On point, Romney’s fabrication evokes the most presumptuous of Mormon arrogance – the self-anointed mandate to baptize non-believers into their faith way, way after the fact. How else can “latter day” saints explain heavenly residents before that visionary ruffian, Joseph Smith, 160 years ago found golden tablets and divine messages from “Moroni"? Note, for scholars, this is not about plural morons, as exegesis suggests Smith filched this romantic-sounding name oddity from an obscure capital city of a remote island nation. 

Political Infallibility? 

Romney’s clumsy immaculate resignation stretches the political and philosophic envelope. What’s next – proclamations of latter day infallibility (and Romney’s a Mormon bishop), akin to the Pope on matters of dogma? Shameless dissembling from Romney is hardly news, as this blustery tycoon competes for the gold in the Flip-flopping Olympics. I certainly hope only saintly Mormon top-brass can refashion history. Otherwise, expect a mass epidemic of memory deletion by hordes of ordinary evil-doing politicians obscuring miscues.   

For months, media portraits set forth a stylishly “retro” Romney, evoking whitened and brightened, rapacious, Madison Avenue Fifties’ hustlers. True to form, Mitt’s ever the unctuously smiling front man, channeling pitches for “fortified” Wonder Bread (packed with white flour) – or promotions for that foundational revolution in toothpaste technology from Colgate. You all remember famed magical Gardol that shields enamel from decay like plastic slipcovers. Okay, Revolution came cheap in the placid ‘50’s. 

No doubt, this smugly presumptive nominee is praying for campaign Gardol against endlessly piercing jabs over offshore holdings and massive spoils preserved like every devious capitalist does (read: avoid taxation). Romney doppelgängers also sold lavish lots in Florida swampland while broadcasting, like Babbitt, the limitless American Way, whether corporate, military, imperial, nutritional or religious. Did not the ‘50’s ordain American exceptionalism forever, plastering that memorable (if astronomically obscure) phrase, “under God,” to the pledge of allegiance? Retro Mormons know all about tribal allegiance and obedience to rigid symbols. 

Too bad Romney’s allegiance to “truth, justice and the American way” in fact resigned after he accumulated riches. If fallen humans can suddenly, “retroactively retire” from scandal, not only is born a new vocabulary for sleaze but let's declare history by evidence kaput, if not dead. Why limit retroactivity to mere business concerns, where one stays “in the dirty outsourcing trenches” when “on leave”? Wouldn’t a smarter politician find cleaner ways to “update” his grossly misleading election documents?If not strictly a felony, such false disclosure (then and now) qualify as political and intellectual malpractice – and there's no end to the nasty ripples.

We've all heard of reverse mortgages, reverse osmosis, reverse stock splits, reverse engineering, even reverse vasectomies (ouch!)? But never in the history of mankind has anyone, not even our philosophic giants (except in science fiction), succeeded in reversing the fixed nature of the past. Done is done, or did Romney miss the W. memo that outlawed “do-overs,” especially during public scrutiny. 

Reactionary Rejiggering 

Behold new vistas for action (and academic study) called “Retroactive Reversals." Why can’t today’s Romney retroactively NOT abuse his pet dog, when the mitt mutt truly hit the fan on that infamous vacation? Why not retroactively annul the pain to that (now deceased) high schooler young Mitt spitefully victimized? Why not retroactively rescind his state’s successful health reform because rightwing cranks indict all government as demonically socialistic? Retro is one thing; reversing time, an impossibility whose quest embarrasses the fool trying it. 

Looking forward, I expect new and happy surprises from Life with Mitt. After getting nominated, if he survives that long, journalistic scrutiny will turn over every rock hunting for front page scandals. Romney the time-shifter faces a long, bitter, itchy trek before November. Or simply an itch to be someone else. Too bad Saint Romney doesn’t share Moroni’s gift for prophecy: what top politician who now pitches job creation at home wouldn’t have better scrubbed away such overt contradictions on his own resume?  

Business reports already chastise Romney for playing fast and loose with partners, even reneging on his word, but only part time. This morning we hear rumors from “Bain sources” that Romney would have declined running if that meant disclosing tax returns. Despite our degraded times, we don’t lack for revelations (no, not the religious fictions) but because many are the instruments and agencies that get truth out. Keeping humiliating moments (or dazzling debacles) secret is a full-time occupation, one that Romney is flubbing. The very dimension of time Romney wants so badly to suppress eventually elevates dead fish to the surface.    

Disclosures in politics about financial details are really about character revelations – especially as a growing mass of blunders are impossible to “resign from” – without serious costs. Mitt could chat up the Mormon God, pleading for post-hoc blanket immunity from hypocrisy and deception. But that might require confession, opposite Romney’s epic stonewalling that his past contains no sins of commission (but many millions from commissions). 

Of course, if one adheres to curious miracles of the church “of Latter Day Saints” – like baptizing retroactively – why not try retroactive, immaculate resignations? Being a “latter day” saint presumes an in-house set of latter day miracles. And if bad goes to worse, only a miracle saves Romney from crashing. Mitt may not “believe” in the same universe (and fixed past) that rational adults confirm, but the future inevitably promises its own marvelous, “latter day” revelations.  And you heard it here first: they come before November.