BY KAREN WEBB

I am beginning to feel a little sympathy for poor old Mitt and he seems to have aged a good 15 years since wrapping up the nomination. This tap dancing routine he has been doing since about April is much more rigorous than the one Richard Gere does in Chicago.

I am running on my financial success, he says, but trust me I tithe.

A couple of days ago he did an interview, in London, with Brian Williams from NBC and I know he could have some jet lag, but he looks much older. I am not going to use the entire interview, but here goes:

Brian: As governor you signed an assault weapons ban in Massachusetts and you said at the time, quote: “These guns are not made for recreational use or self-defense they are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.” Do you still believe that?

Mitt: Well, I signed a piece of legislation as you described that banned assault weapons in our state. It was a continuation of prior legislation and was backed both by the Second Amendment advocates, like myself, and those that wanted to restrict gun rights because it was a compromise. Both sides got some things improved in the law as they existed.

What do you suppose he would have said at the signing of the law had he been one of those who wanted to restrict gun laws. The law banned exactly the type of gun used in the Colorado shootings. If Colorado had the law that Massachusetts has, James Eagan Holmes wouldn’t have been able to buy the gun. I wonder what the compromise was.

After the shootings in Colorado Romney said: “I still believe the Second Amendment course to preserve and defend and don’t believe that new laws are going to make a difference in this type of tragedy.”

We have to remove our shoes to get on a plane and that regulation came as a result of a tragedy that didn’t happen, but we can’t do anything as a result of 71 people being shot?

Brian: On things like Aurora, CO, do you see how Americans get frustrated at politics? They can see and hear your words from earlier in your career. People are hurting out there. Perhaps they want to start a national conversation about whether an AR 15 belongs in the hands of a citizen, whether a citizen should be able to buy 6,000 rounds on the Internet. You see the argument.

Mitt: Well, this person should not have had any weapons and bombs and other devices. It was illegal for him to have many of these things already, but he had them. We could sometimes hope that just changing a law will make all bad things go away. It won’t. Changing the heart of the American people may well be what is essential to improve the lots of the American people.

Not one item they have found, so far, is illegal for a person with no diagnosed mental illness or criminal background to get. Changing the heart of the American people – how hard could that be unless the way you plan to change it is to legislate morality. There are how many interpretations of the Bible? That’s right – there are as many as there are people interpreting it.

Why have a law against murder if over 10,000 are murdered every year and most of them are related to guns? Sell any kind of weapon anyone wants and after they have used them, we will say, “Let’s just not discuss it because not enough people have died, yet.”

Brian: As a practical matter, do you have a problem with being able to buy 6,000 rounds of ammunition off the Internet.

Mitt: Well, I don’t know that I am going to be able to find a way to prevent people who want to provide harm from being able to purchase things that could carry out that harm. What I want to do is find the people who represent a danger to America and find them and keep them from having the capacity to use or buy things that could hurt other people.

First define practical. And how will we find those people, Mitt, if nothing is going to alert us until they shoot 71 people in a theater and then we can prevent that person from doing it again?

We all know the people Mitt considers a mortal danger to Americans and those thinks are worth creating laws to control: married gay couples, women making their own medical decisions, doctors swearing to the Hippocratic oath and then having politicians force them to break that oath by ordering them to say things they do not believe.

Porn can be controlled according to Mitt, but not the sale of ammunition. Oh, I would feel much safer knowing all the James Holmes’s out there can’t watch porn, but they can buy 6,000 rounds of ammo.

Believe it or not, they are talking about regulating what kids can watch and costumes that can be worn at premieres, but they can’t regulate 100-round clips, thousands of shells for guns that will shoot hundreds of rounds a second.

Why not have metal detectors at movies, but then you might catch some of the 300 million other gun owners. You know the ones who think they are impervious to tear gas or any other kind of smoke and won’t be shooting each other in a dark theater.

If no one, except police or the military, could buy a clip with more than 10 shots, then he would have had to reload and someone could have gotten him before that 11th shot.

Brian: You said a few years back, I quote: “I don’t line up with the NRA.” Is that still true?

Mitt: Well, in every single issue there are difference between myself and the NRA. On many issues we share a common commitment to the Second Amendment and the right of people to bear arms, but I’m sure from time to time there would be issues where they and I might part. I don’t have one for you right now, but their agenda is not entirely identical with my own. I don’t know that I line up 100% with almost anybody.

He doesn’t even line up with himself during his previous campaigns. John McCain is correct; Sarah Palin is a better campaigner.

Romney is sure he doesn’t line up with the NRA on some issues, but he can’t give you such an issue. Ambush time. I can hear it now: Brian ambushed poor Mitt, just like Katie ambushed Sarah by asking her to name a newspaper or magazine where she got her news.

I think Mitt and the NRA agree on one issue: the Second Amendment must be preserved. I don’t actually think they agree on how to implement it and if Mitt were to voice disagreement on any issue he would be crucified by the right and they are the ones with all the guns.

Why doesn’t the NRA free this tortured man?

Brian: Can you say your decision is firm that you’ll not do a walk back between now and the convention, now and the fall election, that there will be no returns, more returns released by Mitt Romney?

Idiot: No, I’m following the same precedent that was put in place by John McCain. Two years and by the way hundreds of pages of returns for the Democrat operatives to go through to twist and distort and to turn in different directions trying to make a big deal out of.

John McCain gets to make the rules? John McCain and his campaign have seen 22 years of Mitt’s tax returns and, to my knowledge, not one of those who have seen what Mitt is hiding has insisted that he release what they have seen.

Two years and hundreds of pages? What he is saying is that quantity is more important than quality. Had his returns been only a couple of pages each year he would be releasing his returns all the way back to his first job, which wasn’t signing up for Vietnam.

Mitt would not dream of distorting. Just last week he and his team took, I think, 13 words out of an Obama speech and ran with it when he knew it was distortion. You can’t run on your business skills if you are not willing to release the evidence needed to prove your point.

Brian: People hear he is not going to release the rest of his and they wonder why. They wonder is there a year there where he paid no taxes. They wonder about expensive horses, houses and what have you. So I will ask another way. What is it that is preventing you from releasing the rest of your returns?

Mitt: Well, one, I have released all the information about my financial holdings. That is required by law and then in addition beyond the law have released or will finally release actual when the last year is complete, two years of full returns and what we have noted is our Democrat friends take what is there, twist it, distort it, dishonestly use it in attack ads. I just don’t want to give them more material than is required.

Mitt has had some of the most dishonest and distorted ads ever written. We all know he is hiding a bombshell, probably many bombshells.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer