Gearing Up For the Best Election Ever

Because I'm physically unable to keep myself from politicizing, I'd just like to say that it's official: I no longer like Mitt Romney. Like everyone, I was taken in by his square jaw and presidential hair, but how much political aplomb can you have if you think telling people about the time you tied your dog to the roof and drove for twelve hours is a good career move? When there are so many neat people throwing down in both the Republican and Democratic primaries it doesn't take much to turn me off. I'm kind of ashamed it took this lesson in animal cruelty to get me to see this guy for the cold-blooded hardliner he apparently is. Saying that we need to expand Guantanamo and advocating for torture maybe should have tipped me off rather than the fact that he isn't the world's best dog-owner. What can I say? I'm a sucker for cute furry mammals and suspected terrorists just don't do it for me.

But on to the real point of this post. Reading the article I linked to at the beginning of this post raises an interesting legal question. I'm going to assume that since he took this vacataion in 1983, the statute of limitations has come into effect for Romney's act of animal cruelty, but what if he took the vacation last summer? Would the state of Massachusetts be able to prosecute him due to his admission during an interview? What kind of defense would he be able to raise given that he laid out so many of the facts? If he later said that he made up the story to illustrate a point would that fly in court, or would the burden of proof shift to the defendent? What about the now famous quote from Clinton about experimenting from Marijuana (obviously, since he said he was in England during the time of experimentation it wasn't technically illegal, but it's something to think about)? Being a legal neophyte I cannot answer these questions now, but I welcome any readers who want to shed some light on the issue. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to answer myself.