Revenge is a Dish Best Served Half-Baked

As did his sending John Sununu out a few days ago to once again inject race into the election, Mitt Romney's absurd distortion of President Obama's "revenge" statement smacks of desperation. After all, who hasn't heard that this, that or the other thing "is the best revenge" - Living a good life is the best revenge, succeeding is the best revenge. Anybody who gives that type of comment two seconds of thought can figure out its meaning.

As Greg Sargent says, Romney's insulting the collective intelligence of the American electorate. I understand why Republican operatives and hacks act as an eager echo chamber for that type of demogoguery - it's their job - but I have to admit, I was surprised to find this by Jim Lindgren.

It is not surprising that President Obama, a strong proponent of doing more to equalize incomes, would speak about voting as the “best revenge.” After all, as I explored in “What Drives Views on Government Redistribution and Anti-capitalism: Envy or a Desire for Social Dominance?” (available at SSRN), strong proponents of income leveling are more likely than strong opponents to admit that when they are angry, they plot revenge.

You start with a distortion of a comment by the President, add your own crackpot theory, half-bake it, and I guess that's what comes out?

Does Lindgren actually believe what he wrote, or is he looking for an excuse to tout his paper and happy to jump on the bandwagon of deliberate distortion in order to plug his own work?