Of Cows and Men: Romney Faces the Nation

[steve2470]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/06/of-cows-and-men-romney-faces-the-nation.html



Here’s a tip for aspiring politicians: if you’ve agreed to appear on a big national show, and you know there are going to be some awkward questions, arrange to do the interview on a pretty farm with some cows mooching around in the background. That was the tactic Team Romney adopted for their man’s much-anticipated sit-down on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and it worked out well.

The interview took place in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, one of the stops on the Mittster’s five-day bus tour of six battleground states. While he hemmed and hawed on whether he’d repeal President Obama’s decision to let the children of illegal aliens stay in the country, I am sure that many other viewers, like me, couldn’t keep their eyes off the black and white bovines walking to and fro behind his shoulders. If Romney didn’t exactly dazzle, he came out of the interview pretty much unscathed, which his campaign will consider a victory, and he also managed to get off some highly questionable attacks on Obama without being called on them.

Hitherto, Romney had largely restricted his television appearances to the friendly environs of Fox News. The announcement that he had agreed to an interview with CBS News, the home to attack dogs like Ed Murrow and Dan Rather, raised memories of Rather confronting George H. W. Bush at Black Rock during the 1988 campaign—a set-to that moved old Poppy to comment “It was tension city out there.” This was tranquil Norman Rockwell countryside. Romney and dear old Bob Schieffer, both clad in blue blazers and open-necked oxford shirts, looked like a couple of Wall Street swells attending a Father’s Day brunch at one of their pals’ places in the country. About the only source of tension was whether one of the beasts would stop and drop a cow pie next to Mitt’s right ear. (It didn’t happen.)

Just as he did on Friday, Romney refused to say straight out whether he would strike from the books President Obama’s executive order, which ruled out the possibility of deportation for roughly eight hundred thousand undocumented young aliens. The first time Schieffer asked him, he said, “Let’s step back and look at the issue….” The second time, he said, “It would be overtaken by events.” And the third time, he said, “We’ll look at that setting as we reach it….”

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. "the ability to speak does not make one intelligent"

Romney spoke but said NOTHING of any substance and is still guaranteed around 30% of the vote in November and is- if you believe the corporate news media- locked in a tight race with President Obama.

[yellowcanine]

2. About the only source of tension was whether one of the beasts would stop and drop a cow pie next to

Mitt’s right ear. (It didn’t happen.)

Stupid reporter. They were sitting in a yard, not a cow pasture.