IS MITT ROMNEY EVEN THEORETICALLY CAPABLE OF DIPLOMACY?

I don't think we should be surprised that Mitt Romney is insulting the locals on his trip overseas:

The prime minister has hit back at comments from the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney querying Britain's readiness for the Olympics....

Romney said the fallout from the G4S security fiasco and a threatened strike by immigration officials were "disconcerting" and questioned whether British people would get behind the Games.

"Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the Games actually begin. It is hard to know just how well it will turn out," said Romney.

Why would Mitt Romney ever be diplomatic in his language? It's been more than a quarter of a century since he became the alpha dog of Bain Capital, and since then he's basically been at the top of every food chain of which he's been a part -- as the guy running the Olympics, as the candidate in multiple campaigns, as governor of Massachusetts. If you've ever had a job, you understand how this works: He's the boss. That means you have to weigh every word. He doesn't.

Beyond that, he's thrown in his lot with an equally undiplomatic group of people: movement conservatives. He my not be one of them to the depths of his soul, but he's worked hard to make himself one of them. And movement conservatives surround him in the campaign. Movement conservatives operate by two rules: (1) no enemies on the right and (2) no concessions to anyone who's not on the right. And "no concessions" means you don't even concede non-conservatives' human decency or good faith -- anyone who disagrees with you is evil. (See: Congress, dysfunction in.)

After being the top guy for nearly thirty years, and after faking death-before-compromise wingnuttery for six, how can Romney possibly get himself to choose his words carefully?

You may say this was always Romney's nature, as shown in The Washington Post's Mitt the prep-school-bully story. But some people grow out of that kind of thing. Romney's life experience has ensured that he hasn't had to.