I’ve tried to be polite in the past, but I have to say this is the most ridiculous of Brendan Nyhan’s many ridiculous columns attempting to deny or play down the obvious about Mitt Romney’s campaign and to debunk accurate media characterizations of Romney.

First of all, despite Nyhan’s wishing it were so, the Romney aide’s Etch-a-Sketch comment is hardly a distant memory. It’s brought up all the time in media reports and columns and posted comments. It’s kept alive by Romney’s constant revisions of previous positions.

The initial stories about Romney’s leaked video that I saw, in the NY Times, NPR, Yahoo News, etc., all mentioned prominently that about 47% of Americans make too little to pay federal income tax. I saw plenty of context in the articles I read.

Nyhan’s most ridiculous and astonishing assertion is questioning whether Romney’s leaked comments reveal his “true character or beliefs.” Who should we believe — Nyhan, or our own eyes and ears? Romney said what he said in unmistakable terms at an event that he thought was off the record. What he said is perfectly consistently with his trickle-down economic proposal to drastically lower taxes on wealthy people, and most likely to raise them on lower-income people. (BTW, conservative Times columnist David Brooks also bashed Romney for his comments).

Brendan, you think he was just “crafting his message” for that rich audience and it doesn’t necessarily represent what he thinks? Read the comments again, pal. Play those comments for a cross-section of American voters and see whether they think those comments represent Romney’s real views.

Contrary to what Nyhan advises, journalists should not resist the urge to engage in evidence-based analysis, as they have done with this story. But I would say with this column Brendan Nyhan forfeits the right to tell journalists anything about how to do their job.

Heh.