Republicans and their ideas tend to piss me off. The politics of personal greed, the dearth of compassion, and the persistent belief in manufactured facts, all combine to decimate any equilibrium I may have achieved. So when presidential election season rolls around, I expect to spend the better part of a year in a rage, courtesy of whatever abomination of a nominee the GOP has chosen for itself. Whether it’s John McCain referring to Barack Obama as, “that one,” in a debate, or Bush Jr. using the events of 9/11 to terrorize voters into giving him a second term, it’s always something. Except this year, it’s not. Mitt Romney is incredibly annoying, but I just can’t seem to take him seriously enough to bother getting angry.

Almost everything about Mittens is annoying. There’s the constantly whiny voice, the high waisted mom jeans, the prodigious sense of entitlement, and the amount of time and energy he must devote to making his hair do that poofy thing it does. His very being is annoying like nails on a blackboard, or a little brother who won’t stay on his side of car during a cross country road trip.

Then there are the things he says, rarely sufficiently substantial to elicit actual anger, but so very, very, irritating. How much he likes the height of the trees in Michigan, being able to fire people, and hunting, “small varmints.” Describing himself as unemployed, trying to make a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry over some aspect of health care reform, telling a baker, inside his very own bakery, that his cookies looked like they’d come from 7-11. Mittens says such stupid, stupid, things.

And now he’s taken his show on the road, heading to the UK, Poland, and Israel. Presumably, the idea is to meet with world leaders, make himself seem presidential by association. Thus far, that’s not quite how things are working out. Instead, he’s managed to annoy an entire new nation, the UK, by saying something stupid. How unsurprising.

What exactly did he say?

You know, it’s hard to know just how well it will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.

The “it,” in question being, of course, the summer Olympics. Instead of looking presidential with the Prime Minister, he’s being scolded like a school boy. To be fair, after meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, he did backpedal just a bit. But, life not being much like an etch-a-sketch after all, he couldn’t make his previous statement disappear.

Mittens won’t get to Israel for a few more days, but he’s already irritated a good portion of its population by scheduling a fundraising dinner on a Jewish fasting holiday. He postponed the event, but the damage was already done. Who knows what he’ll get up to in Poland?

Once again, I find myself wondering if Romney even wants to be president. He doesn’t seem to be trying all that hard. Or perhaps I’m overestimating him, and this really is the very best he can do. I’m not sure which possibility bodes worse for a Romney presidency.