NICK GILLESPIE: Secret Romney Tape Means We Can Finally Stop Talking About Obama’s Failed Foreign & Domestic Policy! “Does anyone still think that Obama has any idea of what he’s doing with regard to foreign policy?” No, but the press doesn’t want to talk about that, so they’re happy to have this tape. Not that they were talking about it before.

For the slow-learners in the press corps, the reason it’s bad when nearly half the electorate doesn’t pay income tax isn’t that they’re somehow parasites. It’s that people who don’t have skin in the game don’t care about the game. In a better world, everyone would pay at least some income tax — enough to feel it, say 5% of gross income — and it would go up and down every year in proportion to government spending. If that happened, there would be political pressure to control government spending, and we wouldn’t have the $16 Trillion debt. Don’t, however, expect our corps of bylined Democratic operatives to stress that point, even if by some chance they manage to grasp it.

Meanwhile, more from Nick:

Obama’s actual record is worth sussing through. As spun out at the Democratic National Convention, Obama’s domestic policy moves have seen nothing but success. Either the stimulus flat-out worked or, if it didn’t actually achieve any of its goals in terms of reducing unemployment, it staved off far worse outcomes. You got that, America: If I hadn’t gotten to do what I wanted, says President Obama, you’d be even more out of a job. The illegal auto bailout was so successful that it will never earn back what was spent on it. Health care reform, which expands the budget-breaking program Medicare and yet manages to protect completely the budget-breaking program Medicare, will help the country’s bottom line because it forces more people to pay for insurance so good they have to be forced to pay for it. The president’s plans for the future include more spending, slightly more taxes (but only on the rich) and deficits for at least the next 10 years (his budget proposal only goes that far).

When the focus shifts from economic policy to things such as the drug war, or immigration, or transparency, well…noboby really wants to discuss those things anyway, right?

Apparently not.

UPDATE: Reader Aaron Chmielewski writes:

Who wants to think of themselves as the 47%?

Mitt can make this work brilliantly.

The implication is people who vote for Obama don’t want people to work. He won’t raise taxes on them, but he will focus on the America that wants to work, the people who don’t want to be part of the 47%.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: By “slow learners in the press corps,” I particularly want to include David Brooks.

MORE: Reader Leslie Eastman writes: “I defy the press to release the full contents of Romney’s speech.”

And reader Tom Gunn writes: “I think this secret Romney tape is not going to do what the progressive expect it to do. 47% of the population on the dole, of that 47%, 23 million are not paying taxes BECAUSE they don’t have a job and would do near anything to be able to pay taxes because that would mean they have a JOB with income!” Yeah, not so many of those going around. Ask Jimmy Carter’s unemployed grandson. . . .

Plus, an excellent point about the Khalidi tape:

Well, the LA Times has a “secret” video of Barack Obama speaking at a party for a famous radical Palestinian, Rashid Khalidi. They’ve been sitting on it since before the 2008 election, and they won’t let voters see it. Why is that?

Because they’re covering for him. Which bears repeating over and over an over again.