FIGURE OUT ONE THING: ROMNEY AND THE "BOSS LAUGH"

Long ago and far away I had a boss who fancied himself gifted at the art of "reading" people. In truth I have seen people more skilled at this ephemeral art but I admired the emphasis that my boss placed upon the skill. Not so much the precise "how" of it was his message but he emphasized, always, to take one specific character read away from your initial contacts with another person.

I guess he convinced me because I have always made it a habit to glean one trait from any observation of a person. I always try to have this nugget be something that arises from my own, personal observation and not from anything anyone else might have said about the subject. Often these trait observations are borderline trivial (he is a left-handed golfer, he smokes, he wears colored contact lenses.) Sometimes they are useful (he holds a eye contact longer when he lies, he speaks in incomplete sentences when he is unsure of his argument)

Here is my one thing with Mitt Romney: he does not have the capacity to genuinely laugh and probably lacks a developed sense of humor at all. If you take the time to notice, no human being's natural laugh is actually "ha ha ha…" When Romney says something that he thinks is critical but humorous about any of his opponents or about any proposition, he shows teeth and releases a "ha ha ha…". It is not an expression of human appreciation of the humorous event. It is a "boss laugh", a command to the underlings around him to laugh because the boss has just said something funny.

Make of this what you will. I have no theory about whether his journey surgically removed his sense of humor or whether he never had one.

I, for one, have always found "boss laughs" borderline insufferable.