Sometimes public policy makers, writers, even ordinary people, forget that their opinions are about actual people.

It might be a forest and trees thing. Individuals make a deeper impression than people in the aggregate. When Mitt Romney told CNN's Soledad O'Brien "I'm not concerned about the very poor" he was attempting, albeit in a clumsy way, to express with urgency that the real crisis in America involves the middle class.

He has been hammered about the way he accumulated his immense wealth, and the coupon cutting income that that wealth generates. He has gone beyond growing wealth through shrewd risk-taking. A thousand becomes a million through nerve and work. A hundred million becomes a billion through the inevitability that comes with size. A shining star can devolve into a black hole through sheer force of gravity. Romney is seen by many as having become Thurston Romney the Third, letting his billions gather unto him as he clips his morning coupons.

Mitt is not unaware. He knows the image. He tries to distance himself from the notion that he identifies more with fellow travelers on the golden streets of extreme wealth than with ordinary folk.

This time, once more, his I'm-on-your-side attempt fell flat.

I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich.... I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.

The intent was empathy: that Mitt may not be of you but he is with you. Instead, he came across as cold and uncaring, the villain in the story of the Good Samaritan. He became the Levite in the parable of Jesus who left the ancient victim lying along the road. I'm not concerned about the very poor. Did he say something after that?

O'Brien did try to give him a chance to clarify. And he did try to revive his intended direction. But his don't-group-me-with-the-rich message once more got lost.

We will hear from the Democrat party, the plight of the poor.... You can focus on the very poor, that's not my focus.... The middle income Americans, they're the folks that are really struggling right now and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them.

It reminded me of a remark by President Ford's Press Secretary. Jerald terHorst later said of his onetime boss, "if he saw a school kid in front of the White House who needed clothing, if he was the right size, he’d give him the shirt off his back, literally. Then he’d go right in the White House and veto the school lunch bill."

You can make a Newt Gingrich sort of conservative case for private versus public generosity. The vision most folks agree on, although the means differ, is that those in need do need something beyond a net. People who are down can use way out, a way up. Policy deals with that availability, and whether a way up must be with a weakened net or no net at all.

But terHorst was talking about something deeper than policy. He was describing a way of seeing larger groups of people as abstractions. Although terHorst was talking about one public figure he knew close up, it seems to me he described a limitation of vision that afflicts most of us in varying degrees.

Saul Bellow, I think, once contrived a fictional conversation involving a scientist working on some nuclear device of mass destruction. The conversation was about a neighborhood maniac who, in a rage, had wiped out a family. The scientist hears the news and marvels at the savagery. He asks, in horrified wonderment, who could possibly even consider the killing of five strangers. Then he goes back to his weaponry work.

The Mitt quote seems to have political implications. Newt Gingrich reacts. CBS provides the quote.

"I am fed up with politicians in either party dividing Americans against each other," Gingrich said. "I am running to be president of all of the American people, and I am concerned about all of the American people."

Newt's motivations seem as transparent as mountain air. But the Mitt message, unintended, is not news about actual policy. Romney embraces the Paul Ryan plan to slash the safety net he says he will strengthen as needed. Health care through Medicaid will be slashed. Programs for education, food, and housing will be dramatically reduced. Such necessities are the heart of the safety net which Mitt promises to slash, burn, save, strengthen, depending on the audience.

But all of that has been known about the Mitt program for months, with barely a ripple on the surface of America's political waters. An insensitive remark intending to emphasize the middle class produces a mini-tsunami. Tropical storm Mitt.

The unfortunate Romney phrasing is considered a gaffe. That's the word we see in headlines.

Gaffe.

Politico, CBS, the Huffington Post, CNN, and others use the word in headlines and stories.

Implicit in that coverage, even in the word "gaffe", is a political question. What will be the effect on politics? The effect on policy, and the effect of that policy on real men, women, and children in desperate circumstance, is not part of the reaction of much of anyone. Those who struggle for sustenance and shelter are too numerous to be individuals. They have become numbers, statistics, rounded percentages. Boring.

The coverage goes, as always, to what is interesting, to politics. What about that gaffe!

Mitt Romney is far from alone. We remain with him in spirit.