It seems like a million years ago that Mitt Romney, being pursued in one of those awful Republican presidential debates on his view of illegal immigrants, and attempting to face up to the fact that there are too damn many of them even to begin a comprehensive round-up, indicated that they should all "self deport." Maybe you could attribute that laughable moment to a failure to think on his feet, but now he is being pursued on the question of when, exactly, he ceased being Large-and-in-Charge at Bain Capital, and the deliberate, considered response of his campaign introduces Americans to the concept of "retroactive retirement."
Were I personally to retire sometime in the future, retroactive to 2011, would that mean that the 8-to-5s I am currently pulling would just be an unpleasant dream?
Oh, but I am being unfair. The rules are different at Bain Capital than in the gray zones of the economy wherein people separate from their employers with a kind of unambiguous immediacy. Maybe that would be why Romney isn't releasing more of his tax returns. They'd show the laws he obeys aren't the ones that apply to algebra teachers and mid-level managers. It's possible to overplay that I-play-by-different-rules schtick.