Once again, we were treated to another MTP where Russert holds up McCain as the shining RINO on the hill he is.
Right out of the box, Russert puts up this McCain quote, “The fact is…Governor Romney has hedged, equivocated, ducked and reversed himself.” and “presses” McCain by asking him what he is talking about “specifically”. Russert essentially asks McCain to dig a little deeper into his distortion of Romney’s record so those that didn’t get it the first time will really be misled this time. This is more than throwing softballs - it’s handing the batter a bigger bat.
Senator McCain straightens himself and prepares to give us some straight-talk. He then implies that Romney was unclear about whether we maintain the surge in Iraq. In the first 8 seconds of the interview below, the interviewer says, “You (Romney) have been very vocal in supporting the President and the troop surge yet the American public has lost faith in this war.”
During those months that McCain mentioned when things looked bleak, we now know that Romney was for the surge - not timetables.
Back to our love fest, McCain also states that “just a fact” that Romney was for timetables. Seeing the “straight-talker” lie with such ease, like the other candidate endorsed by the New York Times, was stunning and, hopefully, helped some GOP likely-voters to reject McCain’s candidacy. The fact is that Romney was trying to answer, forthrightly, a question about whether there should timetables for troop withdrawals.
Here’s Romney’s answer:
So, did you come away from that interview thinking Romney was for troop withdrawals?
OF COURSE NOT!
Nobody would, except maybe a candidate who sees his long-held dream of working at Pennsylvania Avenue’s other end coming to an end. McCain has wanted the Presidency for a long-time and feels he got Bush-whacked in 2000 in South Carolina. Not one to let the facts get in the way of his opinion, he tries to convince Florida and the nation that Romney has been for timetables for withdrawals when that’s not what he said last April or a hundred times since, especially in the debates.
Why didn’t McCain criticize Romney in one of the 13 debates so far?
Because Romney has never supported timetables and, in fact, called for Bush to veto timetables. How do we know this without scouring LexisNexis or Google? Because had a leading GOP candidate supported timetables for troop withdrawals than his other opponents, and the media, would’ve pounced on it and they didn’t.
Russert himself has had Romney on since then and does anyone doubt that Russert’s MTP team would have dug that gem up if it was there and shoved it in Romney’s face - but it wasn’t so they didn’t.
By the way, in the GMA interview, there’s a banner that says, “Republicans Rocked. Governor Romney’s Surprise”. The surprise was that Romney had set a fundraising record for GOP candidates. The media often mentions Romney’s wealth - implying that’s why he’s winning. They rarely mention that he has raised more money than any other candidate or that in states where he spent a lot of money (NH) he didn’t win. Maybe, he’s winning because people think he’d make a better President than the other candidates.