Rather than issue the customary inauguration speech prebuttal, today, on the occasion of the pre-inauguration of Willard Mitt Romney I will simply single out phrases from the inauguration speech I believe deserve Americans’ most severe opprobrium. They are:

“I have spoken often of a shining city on a hill, and today the Romney estate is as fabulous as on the day it was purchased.”

“So first of all let me assert my firm belief we have nothing to fear but Muslims, Sharia Law, 20% capital gains rates, China, the Greeks, Mexicans, lots of Mexicans, labor unions, trial lawyers, Saul Alinsky, the Iranians, the Palestinians and most alarmingly Jewish people in country clubs.”

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but how it can do it with zero revenue.”                                                                                 

“Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. Except for global warming, if it existed.”

“There are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Count me among those people.”

 “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but a corporation as a person lives on.”

“On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and of thought have not gone forever. They really need to just get over it.”

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking the reputation of private equity.”

 “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty, unless it involves raising taxes.”

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, well, it just can’t”

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much, it is whether we provide enough for those who are our job creators, who as it turns out, are those who have too much. So I guess what I am saying is that the test of our progress is whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much.”

“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. What?”

“The most important thing is for us to find Fidel Castro. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him. I want justice…There’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or really frail. And a special hello to you Cuban-American voters from Florida in the audience today.”