After weeks of being pilloried in the press for telling one lie after another, the night he lost, Romney was transformed.
Suddenly you heard one pundit after another calling him a "good man," a "decent man." Why? Because his concession speech was "gracious."
Honestly, what did the media expect of him the night Romney lost? That he'd put a curse on Obama's second term? That his head would spin around and he'd start projectile vomiting?
I heard even more bilge across the media spectrum: If only Romney had spoken like that throughout the campaign, he might have won. Really? What was so extraordinary about Romney's concession, or how he delivered it? He looked sad, pained, exhausted. His words lacked poetry and he sounded as robotic as usual. It was a paint-by-numbers speech, little more.
The best commentary I heard on his short speech was from an ex-Mormon friend who hated it: "He was arrogant. He said he would pray for the president."
I asked him why that bugged him, and he clarified: "I've heard that umpteen times. Someone religious disagrees with you, then ends the argument abruptly with 'I'll pray for you.' Meaning, you're hopelessly wrong and only God can help you now, but your prayers won't work. Mine will, because I have a direct line to God, and maybe, just maybe, that might save you from the error of your ways."
I thought that was a touch over the top until I started reading articles about how shell-shocked Romney was to lose, how he hadn't even considered the possibility, how he had discounted every poll but the ones that told him what he wanted to hear. How he'd even planned a massive fireworks display over Boston Harbor.
Well, no matter, I'll pray for him.