The best defense of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s instantly notorious “47 percent” remarks at a May fundraiser is that he made a bad point badly.

Romney mixed up three separate groups: the roughly half of the country that will inevitably support President Barack Obama, the half that doesn’t pay federal income taxes and the half that receives government benefits. Then he declared them all a collective lost cause. He will never win them over, or convince them to take responsibility for their lives. Next question.