"The New New Romney Is a New Kind of Mendacious Liar" by Charles P. Pierce at Esquire

[applegrove]

The New New Romney Is a New Kind of Mendacious Liar

by Charles P. Pierce at Esquire

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/new-new-romney-13541557

"SNIP...............................................

I'll say it right now. Every sector in town, moderates, liberals, everybody says here is the problem, you guys won't give him any credit for closing loopholes because like you guys he won't name all the loopholes while you attack him for doing it. You are attacking him for not giving the target and then you're attacking when you get the target.

This is altogether stunning. All candidates soft-pedal positions that they feel might cost them votes. (Romney's running mate is something of a past master at it.) All candidates lie, or fudge, or flip-flop with something like abandon in order to win an election. But what Willard Romney is saying to the electorate here is so deeply, profoundly cynical that it seems to me to be unprecedented. In essence, this is what he's selling to the country.

"I'm not giving you specifics because I might lose the election, and I'm telling you that right up front so you can make it part of your calculation about voting for me. If I tell you what I'm going to do, you will vote against me. I know that. You know that. We are in agreement that, if I lay out my policies in clear and unambiguous language, you will not vote for me. If I tell you explicitly that, yes, your mortgage-interest deduction is going up the spout so I can shovel a few zillion more quatloos toward the Pentagon, nobody who owns only one house ever will vote for me. So, no, I'm not going to tell you what loopholes will be closed. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am declining to tell you what I will do as your president.

"I am not refusing to do this because circumstances in office may make me go back on what I have promised. I am not George H.W. Bush. I am not refusing to do this because I have to clue what I will do if I win. I am not George W. Bush, either. I am doing this because my policy ideas will make me unpopular and therefore, I am not going to share them because the opposition may use them to say mean things about me and help me lose the election. We all are in agreement on that. I am not required to do anything that might jeopardize my chances, and that includes telling you people what I will do if you elect me, because I'm running for office, for Pete's sake."
..............................................SNIP"

[Coyotl]

1. No wonder he picked Ryan

[JimDandy]

2. Excellent! Puts in words what we're all thinking

but that not one journalist I've heard has had the guts to say.