"Oh, that was a moment of humor as we had just done what we thought was impossible," Mitt Romney says in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek today, defusing that now-infamous photo of him and his Bain buddies bro-ing out the best way he knows how: clunky awkwardness.  Here's the full exchange with Romney sounding utterly sterile (emphasis ours): 

When you look at it now, does that photo of you and your Bain colleagues posing with money in your pinstripe suits make you laugh or make you cringe?

Oh, that was a moment of humor as we had just done what we thought was impossible. We had raised $37 million from other people and institutions who entrusted us with their funds, and we thought it was a miracle that our group had been able to be so successful in fundraising. And ultimately we were able to yield for them a very attractive return by such investments as Staples (SPLS), which was in our very first fund.

So it’s a happy memory.
We had a great group of people, each one of whom I think of fondly.

In giving Romney-bot the benefit of the doubt, Bloomberg was one of the news organizations cited by The New York Times' Jeremy Peters for consenting to quote approval (though the organization late last month admonished the practice in an internal memo). So maybe, just maybe this quote was vetted and Romney isn't really that awkward? Whatever the case, the $37 million which him and his buddies "thought" was impossible and was fodder for a "moment of humor", is now chump change compared to the $100 million-plus Romney and the RNC raised last month and whipping the fundraising pants off Obama.

Just don't expect any Romney to be celebrating that, or any other "moment of humor" with anything other than the most modeled of photo-ops any more. Maybe the "miracle" days are over for Mitt.

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Alexander Abad-Santos