What's the Mystery Thing In the Painting In the Mitt Romney Portrait?

Your former editor Juli Weiner has an Important Article atVanity Fair about Mitt Romney's strange Official Portrait from when he was the socialist governor of Taxachusetts. For all of his money and all of his calculated lust for public life, Romney acts like he was sewn into the wrong body -- a characteristic that is perfectly captured by his wooden pose and mannequin stare in this official painting. But what is in the painting within the painting? Whatisthat? Perhaps it's something that could motivate the wingnut GOP "base."

Juli Weiner notes many terrible things about this picture, such as the health care legislation proudly displayed in front of both the American Flag and the picture of the little girl from the toilet paper ads. And it is suggested that the mysterious "painting within a painting" might be a painting of a little painter painting something else, perhaps a sailboat. Way too Martha's Vineyard, if you know what we mean! 

The only way Mitt can "energize the teabagger idiots" is to convincingly get behind something the wingnut mob loves, like torturing Muslims or lynching black people. This is why we humbly suggest that the painting in Mitt's portrait actually celebrates either the Ku Klux Klan or the infamous "tortured hooded guy" in the Abu Ghraib photographs.

But considering Mitt's luck, the mysterious thing in the portrait of the poor little rich boy will probably end up being some Masonic Mormon Ritual involving a guy wearing a Peaked Cultist Robe and doing some kind of initiation ritual like jacking off on a strangled rabbit. And that's just not Christian, and this is a Christian Nation! [ Vanity Fair ]