Republican nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney portrays the president as self-activated Manchurian Candidate, biding time before springing his diabolical plans on the American people…

Obama, Romney warned the American Society of News Editors, “does not want to share his real plans before the election, either with the public or with the press.” Obama unbound, Romney told the National Rifle Association, “would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection.”

The word “delusional” comes to mind. If anything, a second Obama term promises to be conservative, in the technical sense — conserving the achievements of the first term, health care most of all, and protecting them from Republican dismantling.