Why Is This Man Laughing?

[ashling]

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/18/mitt-romneys-laugh/

Everyone has noticed by now the non-laugh laugh of Mitt Romney, a kind of half-stifled barking. But what does it mean? It is blurted out as abruptly as it is broken off. Is it a kind of punctuation, part comma, part full stop, part interrogatory mark? What, if anything, is it trying to convey? Why does it seem more like coughing or burping than laughter?

****

Romney would apparently like to resemble Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot,” but that kind of idiocy is beyond him.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. It looks tortured and forced.

I don't think Romney enjoys what he's doing.

[Crow73]

4. He's been doing it

forever.

The thing is can he win? Will the Reality TV voting block vote for the rehashed Bush/Cheney platform?

[tularetom]

2. His magic underwear is tickling his 'nads?

Just a wild ass guess.

[DCKit]

3. Somebody in the audience just snatched a lollipop from a toddler.

A side-splitter in RMoney world.

[Scuba]

5. Because he's just 5 1/2 months from retirement!!!

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. Because the joke is on the audience.

[11 Bravo]

7. He just saw a blind guy walk into a closed door. Funny shit, eh, Mitt?

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. Because ...

Someone just read back to him everything he has said this campaign season?

[FSogol]

9. He loves Lakes.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/05/14/opinion/100000001537911/mitt-likes-music-including-this.html

[Ikonoklast]

10. Faulty programming.

Hardware glitch was ruled out during last routine maintenance inspection, so Engineering kicked it back to Software, who swear they followed all original programming specs as requested by the customer.

Software says they can clabber a patch together just as soon as they can round up enough retirees that remember how to operate the punch-card system that was used to program ROMNIAC 1.0.

[2on2u]

11. His carvelator doesn't go all the way to the top. n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. He is laughing at the poor

[spanone]

13. that is nowhere close to a laugh.