It didn't take long for Mitt to make a mess of his "I'm not concerned about poor people" comments from this morning. On his campaign jet, he tried to back out of it:

"No no no no. No no. You've got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different. I've said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is gonna be devoted to helping middle income people, all right? We have a safety net for the poor in, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that. And if there are people that are falling through the cracks I want to fix that," Romney said. "Wealthy people are doing fine. But my focus in the campaign is on middle income people. Of course I'm concerned about all Americans — poor, wealthy, middle class, but the focus of my effort will be on middle income families who I think have been most hurt by the Obama economy."

Mitt-to-English translation: So he is not concerned about poor Americans because he's too busy being concerned about all Americans. He is not concerned about the poor specifically because they have a safety net. He's not sure if that safety net has holes in it, but if it does, he will fix it, because then he's concerned about poor people, even though poor people have gotten through this economic downturn unscathed, apparently. If the safety net—or perhaps the floor below the safety net—develops cracks, he will also fix those cracks. But mostly he's not concerned about poor people because, like the rich, they're doing okay. Mitt Romney's primary—or quite possibly his only, if certain standards with safety nets and/or the floor below those safety nets are met—concern is the middle class. Stop trying to transform his simple, easy-to-understand beliefs into a gotcha statement, you meanies!