Friday, May 11, 2007

Romney Looks Like a President?

The newest issue of TIME is really strange.

A black and white photo of Mitt Romney is on the cover, accompanied by the words "Sure, he looks like a president."

The
cover story introduces the "real" Romney to the country.

Naturally, the article talks about Mormonism. It also details Romney's changing attitudes about issues like abortion. It's sort of a "Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?" type of report.

What initially caught my attention was the cover shot of Romney.

He may look like a president, but he doesn't look like himself.

It's a really bizarre picture.



Maybe I haven't seen enough of him to recognize his different expressions. I don't know, but it's a very odd photo.

At first I thought Ward Cleaver was on the cover.

The lib media must have agreed to make this Romney week. In addition to the TIME story, Romney will be interviewed by 89-year-old Mike Wallace will this Sunday on
60 Minutes.

Romney is 60, hardly a spring chick, but he looks like a baby compared to Wallace. He is a baby compared to Wallace.

Wallace poses some creepy questions.

He delves into polygamy and Romney's sexual habits and history. Romney must be getting so tired of the Mormon question.

Wallace also gives Romney the opportunity to slam President Bush on Iraq.

Romney seizes it.

In what may be his strongest public statements against the Bush administration, presidential candidate Mitt Romney says his fellow Republicans in the Bush White House made mistakes in Iraq that the country is still paying for.

Romney also deplores the polygamy his ancestors practiced in the 19th Century....

"I think the administration made a number of errors," he tells Wallace. "I don't think we were adequately prepared for what occurred. I don't think we did enough planning. I don't think we considered the various downsides and risks," says Romney.

He says President Bush isn't the only one to blame. "He's the person where the buck stops, but it goes through the secretary of defense and the planning agencies, the Department of State — it's the whole administration," Romney says. "They made mistakes … and we're paying for those mistakes."

The president's "surge" policy of putting additional troops into Iraq may never work, says Romney, but it deserves a chance. "We're going to know in a matter of months if it's working or not working."

Romney acknowledges that voters may have a problem with his religion's history of polygamy.

"That's part of the history of the church's past that I understand is troubling to people," he says.

..."I have a great-great grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert and so he took additional wives as he was told to do. And I must admit, I can't image anything more awful than polygamy," he tells Wallace.

Bush = Bad

Polygamy = Bad


Got it.

This is the killler:

Romney's wife, Ann, who converted to the Mormon Church before they were married, is also interviewed. When asked whether they broke the strict church rule against premarital sex, Romney says, "No, I'm sorry, we do not get into those things," but still managed to blurt out "The answer is no," before ending that line of questioning.

What kind of question is that???

Would Wallace ask that of Hillary Clinton and spouse?

How about Barack Obama?

When Lesley Stahl interviewed Obama and wife Michelle, the subject of premarital sex didn't come up.

What an inappropriate line of questioning!

The real question: Why does Wallace keep coming out of retirement?

He's as bad as Barbra Streisand.

3 comments:

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

It would seem Republican candidates are required to pass "the religious test". Hence, the oddball questions by Chris Matthews about evolution, Terri Schiavo, etc. and Mike Wallace inquiring about Romney's sexual practices.


"They made mistakes … and we're paying for those mistakes."

I really do not understand why Republicans feel the need to 'fess up about that. Mistakes are a part of every war. Part of life. Grow up.

We've never been losing, except in our own minds; in the media push for shaping perception. It's truly unbelievable.

How about this for a timetable: Give the insurgency another 6 years. On average, insurgencies never win, and take 10 years to defeat. Victory requires patience, commitment, and perseverance. It ends when it ends. How long it should take is unknowable, whether it be another 5 years or 2 generations later. Victory should be the only thing predictable for the end result. It is the only exit strategy we should be making.

I thought this piece by Dennis Prager was astute:

But neither I nor anyone who predicted a civil war had so much as a premonition of this unprecedented mass murder of the men, women and children among one's own people as a military tactic to defeat an external enemy.

It is, therefore, unfair to blame the Bush administration for not anticipating such a determined "insurgency." Without the mass murder of fellow Iraqis, there would hardly be any "insurgency." The combination of suicide terrorists and a theology of death has created an unprecedented form of "resistance" to an occupier: "We will murder as many men, women and children as we can until you leave." Nor is this a matter of Sunnis murdering Shiites and vice versa: college students, women shopping at a Baghdad market and hospital workers all belong to both groups. Truck bombs cannot distinguish among tribes or religious affiliations.

If America had to fight an insurgency directed solely against us and coalition forces -- even including suicide bombers -- we would surely have succeeded. No one, right, left or center, could imagine a group of people so evil, so devoid of the most elementary and universal concepts of morality, that they would target their own people, especially the most vulnerable, for murder.

That is why we have not yet prevailed in Iraq. Even without all the mistakes made by the Bush administration -- and what political or military leadership has not made many errors in prosecuting a war? -- it could not have foreseen this new form of evil we are witnessing in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

ddswcdma

Mary said...

I agree wholeheartedly, WS.

And excellent piece by Dennis Prager.