Speaking on last night's Sean Hannity show, Mitt Romney attempted to walk back his earlier anti-American comments where he turned his back on half of America.

Now, Romney says (video below):

"Clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right. In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong. And I absolutely believe however that my life has shown that I care about 100%. And that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100%. When I become president it will be about helping the 100%."

Romney's comments weren't just a gaffe; he didn't just misspeak. His earlier comments have over 200 words - all along the same theme - and take place over a space of just over one minute.

In fact, just hours after the video with the 47% comments was released, Romney called an unscheduled press conference to address the video. Instead of saying he was wrong, he simply said they were "inelegantly stated". That was in response to a question asking if he wanted to step away from the 47% comments ( peekURL.com/vMA7wZM ). At the press conference, he did say he wanted to "help all Americans", but he also said among other things "The president's approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn't as attractive to them."

It's not like Romney came up with these ideas on his own: he was stating the ideology of a good part of the GOP and most of those in the tea parties and libertarians camps. Leaders of those groups knew what Romney was saying, because he simply repeated what they've been saying for years. In October 2011, leading supposed-conservatives started the "I Am The 53" effort, which probably gave Romney the 47% idea.

Now, Romney just wants everyone to forget about everything that happened before.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the Democrats are helping Romney in that effort. Many libertarian concepts are anti-American, especially Ayn Rand-influenced ideas about "producers" vs. "moochers". Those concepts need to be vigorously opposed and discredited, but the Democratic Party has barely scratched the surface of the discussion we should be having. A good Obama ad about the 47% comments has over half a million views ( peekURL.com/vhBTCjM [1]), but Obama didn't mention the issue in Wednesday's debate. The Democrats are great at smearing the Teapartiers, but are too intellectually weak to show Teaparty ideas wrong.

With his unscheduled press conference and yesterday's statement, Romney has shown that he knows how vulnerable he is on the 47% remarks. Please take a moment and encourage Democratic leaders to concentrate on that rather than smears and side issues.

Video of Romney's latest comments is below, but first for your reference here are the comments that Romney is trying to portray as just a gaffe:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what

And I mean the president starts out with 48, 49... he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that's what they sell every four years.

And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to convince the five to ten percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or another depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.

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[1] Compare that Obama video to my fake "ad". That's from just 340 day ago.