The RWM (Right Wing Media) didn't mind Romney's moves

Sometimes style is substance. In Tuesday night's debate, Governor Romney ran over the moderator, ignored questions posed by the audience to say what he wanted to say...and repeatedly interrupted and ran over the President of the United States, at one point pointing a finger at the President and telling him "You'll get your turn" as if Romney was already the Prez, and at another time telling the Prez "Let me give you a bit of advice."

All of this sailed right over the RWM's collective head. Instead they attacked Candy Crowley for not giving Romney the deference he was due (from their point of view) and calling her a Lib-er-ul working for Obama for her daring to try to get Romney to abide by the very ground rules he himself had insisted on for this debate. And they attacked the President of the United States of America for failing to give the former Governor of Massachusetts the deference the RWM felt was due said Guv.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, whose early-morning MSNBC show is the only moderate Republican show left on TV, did point out that Romney had crossed the line from seeming confident to seeming arrogant. People's true nature shows up when they are challenged. Romney showed that expects everyone to defer to him and not challenge him--and that the rules must be obeyed...by everyone else. Scarborough observed that you don't run over a female moderator...and you don't run over the President, whoever currently holds the office.

In other words, Romney doesn't act like a contender for the Presidency. He acts like a contender for CEO, and the President as someone he's about to sweep aside--someone whose office deserves no respect per se. I think he honestly doesn't realize the difference.

Nor does the RWM.

In doing so the RWM demonstrates how tribal is has become. A real conservative like Scarborough--who will assuredly vote for Romney--accords the office respect. The fake conservatives who throng the RWM do not. They give zero respect to the office, putting their tribe/party above the nation, their party's flag above the Stars & Stripes on the flagpole.

This is not quibbling over style. A man who does not respect America's institutions, as Romney demonstrated Tuesday night--a man who doesn't think his own rules apply to himself--is a man who as president would do what Bush II did: install a Party apparatus superseding the national one, with Party operatives in charge of every department, running every department for the benefit of the Party's political goals, politicizing every function of the State.

And like Bush II he would treat foreign heads of state as owing deference to him, continuing the blunders Romney has already made abroad.

Yet another sign of how his Presidency would be an Imperium is his son Tag joking (?) after the debate that he'd wanted to charge up there and take a swing at the President of the United States for calling his father "a liar."

There are things you don't make jokes about. Saying you have a bomb on you as you're waiting to board an airliner. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater just for the fun of it. And joking about physically assaulting the President of the United States.

Mitt Romney's father and mother were moderate Republicans, not hard-eyed tribalists. Boss Romney has now effectively repudiated most of what his father and mother stood for...and Mitt's son has too, apparently.

What happened to conservatism? Because this kind of behavior is not conservative.