Romney: My Dad Had a Golden Ticket For a Free Lunch At McDonald's And My Wife Has a Magical Pony

As a sign of his willingness to help out political bloggers and cartoonists everywhere, Mitt Romney yesterday generously told another dumb story about his family's near-magical life of privilege and ease:

"I found a little paper card, a little pink card, and it said, 'This entitles George W. Romney to a lifetime of a hamburger, a shake and French fries at McDonald's.' It was signed by the hand of Ray Kroc. My dad had done a little training lesson or whatever for McDonald's when there was just a handful of restaurants and I saw this thing and was like, this is a gold mine, dad! What are you doing?"

Romney said he laminated the card for his father, who he said went "almost every day" to McDonald's for either a hamburger or a fish sandwich.

"He would present this little card and of course the person behind the counter would look and say, 'Well, what is that?' They'd never seen something like that, but he said it was never turned down. They always honored it," Romney said.

As he related the anecdote, Mr. Romney periodically emitted that goddamned laugh  of his, causing small children in the audience to burst into tears and hug their parents closer.

A spokesperson for the fast-food chain said that she was unable to verify whether the elder Romney ever had such a card, but would "strongly caution against" anyone with pink paper and a laser printer "getting any smart ideas."

[ CNN , via alert commenter "johnnyzhivago"]