It’s a provocative title designed to upset literally everybody.

A reader wrote with some comparisons of Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. Several of them are rather generic, but a couple stand out.

Mainly, they have both claimed to be qualified to be President because of their business record — despite some failures that each claims are unimportant. Each has also evolved from being liberal on some positions to conservative. I don’t want to lard up the post with the details; I have placed them on a separate page here if you’re interested.

Less striking things noted by my correspondent are the fact that each has been called remote or arrogant; that they each say they will fight for the middle class; that they both highlight their relationships with their father; that they have had “raucous” debates with opponents, and so forth. I think these are common enough things that they’re not worth documenting in depth; at best, they are worth a passing mention.

I will note myself that Mitt also took a very tough line on illegals (they should self-deport!!!) during his campaign. I don’t know if anyone else offended Latinos as much as he did with that position. So there’s that too.

One final trivial but fun (and rather unusual) parallel: Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, doesn’t drink or smoke. We all knew that. But did you know that Romney’s complete lifetime abstention from cigarettes and alcohol is shared by the Donald?

They’re very different people, obviously — but if Trump goes as far as the polls seem to indicate he might, he could be open to the same sorts of attacks Romney was. So, I’m just going to go ahead and declare Trump to be Mitt Romney Revisited.

Now I’ll walk away, whistling casually and innocently, without a single look backwards.

[guest post by JVW]

The weekly newspaper for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, The Tidings, carries a news item in the most recent edition discussing AB2X15, legislation currently in front of California lawmakers that would bring Oregon-style assisted suicide to the Golden State. About two-thirds of the way into reading the article, we come across this:

“It is urgent to pass the law,” said Patricia Portillo, spokeswoman for Compassion and Choices. “People are dying and they cannot wait another legislative session.”

Have you got that? People are dying, so we urgently need to pass legislation to allow them to — uh, let’s see here — end their lives prematurely.

I don’t mean this post to be an argument on the wisdom of assisted suicide (though feel free to go down that path in the comments if you wish). I instead want to point out that sometimes you shouldn’t just fall back on a shopworn old cliché as a strategy for demanding a legislative solution without running the risk of subjecting yourself to deserved derision.

[Post-publish edits made for clarity of argument.]

– JVW