A sudden epidemic of bigoted Romney “supporters”

As there is no limit to the number of willfully gullible people who are looking for things that confirm what they want to believe, I expect that false flag operations like the guy photographed wearing a racist “pro-Romney” T-shirt will appear from nowhere to become ubiquitous in the very near future.

• Clue #1: Wearing a “Romney/Ryan” sticker on the back of his T-shirt. Nobody does this. Nobody.
• Clue #2: It’s kind of chilly in Ohio this time of year, and the guy’s wearing only a T-shirt, while those around him are wearing coats.

My guess is that this guy also wore a coat when he entered the rally, then stationed himself toward the back of the crowd (in front of the riser where the press photographers are stationed) and then removed his coat to expose the T-shirt, with the explicit purpose of having it photographed.

I agree. I think it is incredibly obvious that the man in the picture is a plant. No legitimate supporter of Romney would ever wear a shirt like that to a Romney rally, nor could anyone wearing a shirt like that expect to get in if he was seen in it by security.

But if you Google what’s on the man’s T-shirt, you’ll see that countless lefties not only believe uncritically that the man is a legitimate Romney supporter, but that he speaks for conservatives:

Conservatives never like to admit when they’re being racist, but when Romney/Ryan supporters are seen flaunting shirts like the one seen below, it’s hard to take anything the “connies” say seriously. This man was photographed while attending a Mitt Romney campaign rally in Lancaster, Ohio over the past couple of days. The offensive shirt reads “Put the white back in the White House.”

At Daily Kos, the man is being cited as an example of what Obama is “up against“:

This is what President Obama is up against. We shouldn’t kid ourselves. A part of this poll swing is Mitt Romney making himself acceptable to a subsection of white America that was looking for a reason, any reason, to turn away from Obama.

I don’t know what can be done about this. Probably nothing. And it makes me sadder than I thought it would.

Actually, I agree that it’s sad that nothing can be done about this. The guy must have put on his coat and hightailed it out of there before anyone could talk to him or follow him home and find out where he lived. These pranksters need to be identified so they can be called on it. That he was photographed only from behind and that he was wearing that Romney sticker on the back of his shirt set off my bullshit detector, and my first reaction was to wonder whether the photographer was in cahoots with him.

The widely circulated photograph does not bear the name of any photographer, and it is simply said to be from “Getty Images.” (Which is known for “aggressive pursuit of copyright enforcement.”) You would think the photographer would be proud of his work. So why isn’t his name on it?

There are also a number of reports about Obama lawn signs vandalized with racist and anti-gay graffiti. While no one can prove that these things weren’t done by mentally ill Romney supporters (certainly no sane and rational supporter of Romney would do any of this), who verifies any of this stuff? Has any thought been given to how easy it would be for a property resident to vandalize a sign in his own yard? By doing so, he would dramatically increase the leverage of his sign, confirm what the lefties want to believe, become a heroic victim, and best of all, I don’t think it’s a crime to vandalize your own property unless you lie to the cops. Which means you could just deface it and leave it there, with a self righteous note condemning right wing bigotry to the world.

Imagine how much fun you could have being a victim of Romney’s bigots!