"What is, 'Because his lips are moving, Alex'?"
An article in today's Washington Post quotes one of former Utah Governor Mitt Romney's advisers in the current campaign to choose him as the Republican Party's candidate in the 2008 presidential election. The adviser spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, standard operating procedure for flacks and hacks when they talk about how things aren't going well or when they want to make stuff up. In the case of Mr. Romney's adviser, he or she gets a two-fer. Romney's about as popular as a Mormon in the Bible Belt, and the flack went the extra distance to pull a number out of his or her ass, apparently to make a statement sound more believable.

"[I]t was self-evident," the Post quotes the flack as saying, "that if you are going to be running against... Rudy Giuliani, the fifth most famous man in the world, an early-state strategy was really the best -- and perhaps only -- way to establish a rationale."

Fifth most famous man in the world? Really? There's an official list somewhere? And Rudolph W. Giuliani is in fifth place on it? So, the list right now is, who? Let me give it a shot - here's a potential Top Ten: President Bush, the Pope, Elvis, George Clooney, then Giuliani, then John, Paul, George, Jesus, and Ringo.

If you can just make up trivial bullshit like this to try to sound authoritative, imagine what you can do with statements about what your candidate believes, what he did and what he will do in the future. I mean, it worked so well when Karl Rove did it for George Bush, didn't it?