It's the duplicity. . .
. . .of Romney's statement on Iraq withdrawal that has gotten him where he is today. For all the handwringing going on at The Corner between Mark Levin and Kathryn Jean Lopez, the one thing they are unable to say in Romney's favor is that Romney said at any point that he was against a timetable for withdrawal. And, wasn't that the question, after all?
Levin, on a couple of occasions, has posted the quote as if it were somehow exculpatory, going on at length about how it supposedly doesn't say what McCain says it does. I think the important thing to consider is the context in which Romney made the remark. This, after all, happened on ABC's "Good Morning America". The folks who watch such shows for information on politics aren't what one would consider to be the most politically active. My guess is that GMA's demographic consists largely of housewives and kids playing hooky -- some may actually be home sick. The housewives, of course, would be the ones that politicians go after -- the legendary "soccer mom".
I think it's safe to say that it's fairly obvious that Romney would not have gone anywhere near where he did had he been making his remarks at CPAC or the Heritage Foundation. But, presented with an opportunity to make a pitch to the vaunted soccer mom demographic, he saw an opportunity to say to them, "Look, I don't like this war any more than you do, and I'd like to get us out of it. But, I have to do it in a way that lets us save face. So, rather than go along with the crowd who is calling for an immediate withdrawal, I think we should just kind of sneak out. That way, the troops come home, and we don't have to have the disturbing images of airlifts out of Vietnam."
Essentially, the case that Levin, Lopez, and all the other indignant Romney partisans are making boils down to, "It is unfair to say that Romney was calling for the withdrawal of troops when he was clearly doing his best to avoid saying so without sounding like it."
The lesson that the establishment conservative media should take away from all of this is that, if you stubbornly refuse to honestly examine your candidate's record, someone else is going to do it for you. And, you're not going to like their conclusions.
Levin, on a couple of occasions, has posted the quote as if it were somehow exculpatory, going on at length about how it supposedly doesn't say what McCain says it does. I think the important thing to consider is the context in which Romney made the remark. This, after all, happened on ABC's "Good Morning America". The folks who watch such shows for information on politics aren't what one would consider to be the most politically active. My guess is that GMA's demographic consists largely of housewives and kids playing hooky -- some may actually be home sick. The housewives, of course, would be the ones that politicians go after -- the legendary "soccer mom".
I think it's safe to say that it's fairly obvious that Romney would not have gone anywhere near where he did had he been making his remarks at CPAC or the Heritage Foundation. But, presented with an opportunity to make a pitch to the vaunted soccer mom demographic, he saw an opportunity to say to them, "Look, I don't like this war any more than you do, and I'd like to get us out of it. But, I have to do it in a way that lets us save face. So, rather than go along with the crowd who is calling for an immediate withdrawal, I think we should just kind of sneak out. That way, the troops come home, and we don't have to have the disturbing images of airlifts out of Vietnam."
Essentially, the case that Levin, Lopez, and all the other indignant Romney partisans are making boils down to, "It is unfair to say that Romney was calling for the withdrawal of troops when he was clearly doing his best to avoid saying so without sounding like it."
The lesson that the establishment conservative media should take away from all of this is that, if you stubbornly refuse to honestly examine your candidate's record, someone else is going to do it for you. And, you're not going to like their conclusions.
posted by MsFalconersCabanaBoy @ 1:39 PM
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