Mitt's finest moment may well have been telling Brian Mooney of The Boston Globe that, when he was doing his Mormon mission in France, he really wanted to be fighting in Vietnam. In other words, rather than pestering wine-growers in Provence, Mitt really wanted to be humping the pig across the Central Highlands. This is so stupefyingly fraudulent as to be goddamn close to immortal

We are not the fast animal; we are the lasting animal. If we were merely fast, we would never have left Africa. Human globalization was so rapid because we are so slow. Speed would have locked us in the cradle of our kind. This cradle shaped us: our uprightness (knuckle-walking is far more costly than walking on two legs), our hairlessness, our big brain that needs cooling, the moisture in the nose, the sweat on the skin, the barrel chest, the stamina. But once the system for endurance was in place, we were ready for the world. Speed is all about youth. The sprinter is finished by 30. The long-distance runner is still winning at 38. And this lateness, again, is essentially human.