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For weeks, one of the driving messages of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has been that President Obama made the economy worse, not better. The argument is a demonstrable lie, but Romney has repeated it over and over again anyway.
Yesterday, asked to defend his bogus claim, Romney flip-flopped: “I didn’t say that things are worse.”
Jamelle Bouie had a good take on this:
Compared to this, Michele Bachmann’s John Quincy Adams gaffe isn’t even worth a mention. Not only did Romney lie about Obama’s handling of the economy, but then — once caught in the lie — he lied again. What’s more, he backed down from the core message of his campaign, and ceded a tremendous amount of ground to the president. For the front-runner in a presidential nomination contest, it’s an extremely amateur performance.
Well said. Lying about lying, on camera, isn’t just foolish, it’s amateurish. Lying about lying on the campaign’s central economic argument offers a reminder that Mitt Romney probably isn’t quite ready for prime time. (Remember, the guy is one-for-three in seeking public office. A natural candidate he isn’t.)
The DNC is pouncing on Romney’s latest mistake, and unveiled this video this afternoon.
DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement, “The fact is that Mitt Romney was plain wrong on the economy, and instead of admitting it, he is compounding the problem by making another ridiculously false statement. Mitt Romney has a well-deserved reputation for flip-flopping and misleading voters about his previous statements and positions - but this really takes the cake. Not only can you not count on Mitt Romney to stand by what he said in the last campaign or in the last year — you literally can’t count on him to stand by what he said in the same week. The only question now is: what will Mitt Romney say tomorrow?”
Actually, that need not be a rhetorical question. If I had to put money on it, I’d wager that Romney flips back to his original position, and again tries to once again say Obama made things worse. Indeed, he probably can’t stick to this new line, since it would mean Romney has to admit that Obama made the economy better, and that’s not a line Romney wants to make.
Indeed, as of right now, it appears that Romney’s new is that the economy is stll in bad shape, but Obama didn’t make things worse. Behold, the GOP frontrunner.
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mr.irony on July 01, 2011 4:02 PM:
gop 2011: douchebags for billionaires
DAY on July 01, 2011 4:03 PM:
re Romney: Lying, or early Alzheimer's. We report, you decide.
stevio on July 01, 2011 4:07 PM:
Flip-flopping only counts if you are a Democrat. Mindless lying only counts if you are a Democrat. Gaffes due to incompetence and/or outright ignorance (see: PALINaroundwithterrorists, Bachman) only matters if you are a Democrat.
Calling black woman "nappy headed Ho's", gets you fired from hosting a morning show . Calling a black POTUS "a dick" on a morning show gets you an extended vacation w/pay...
Yawn...
rob on July 01, 2011 4:12 PM:
Hold on now! Romney is a Republican candidate. Lying is not only ok for them, it is a a prequisite for nomination. Its in their party handbook: lying is ok for us to do and if you don't do it we don't want you. So let's stop all this whinning about Republicans lying. Republican = Falsehood.
Schtick on July 01, 2011 4:14 PM:
The music is rather fitting too. hee hee
crapcha....and unsecit....you still have to go.
Ron Byers on July 01, 2011 4:21 PM:
A real professional politician listens to what the consultants suggest, thinks about how their suggestions fit into his world view and long held beliefs and comes up with a position that is consistent with both. Apparently Mitt isn't comfortable with the thinking part. He just says what his consultants tell him to say. Since consultants are notorious flip floppers and liars, Mitt is permanently branded a lying flip flopper.
st john on July 01, 2011 4:34 PM:
Are we allowed to play the religion/ethics card, just this once? How does this reflect on the Mormon religion to have an avowed Mormon blatantly lie to his proposed constituents? I know he is not running as a "religious leader," but to many he represents a face of Mormonism. Will Jon Huntsman, another Mormon(I think), speak out about this?
I'm curious.
Sam on July 01, 2011 4:41 PM:
What is Romney going to say when unemployment has gone from 10.1% in January 2009 to the 8% range in the middle of next year and is clearly coming down? His message may work now since all these headwinds (supply chain disruption due to the disaster in Japan, high oil/gas prices, Greek debt fears) caused a temporary slowdown, but a year from now Romney's argument is going to fall flat. If he's even the nominee.
JS on July 01, 2011 4:47 PM:
The only consistent thing about Mitt Romney is his long history of flip-flopping on every issue he's ever faced.
Redshift on July 01, 2011 5:19 PM:
Before yesterday, I expected Romney's too-clever line if called on his BS was going to be that Obama had made the recession worse (which is what I've heard him say, not the economy) but that the wonders of the free market were finally overcoming that, but we need to get rid of Obama's policies to really unleash the economic power of Murrica. It's still a lie, but probably enough to fool pundits who are dumb enough to buy the idea that Republicans are the ones who are serious about the deficit, and cause PolitiFact to give a "pants on fire" to anyone who points out that the Emperor has no clothes.
Seems weird that I could come up with that, but the GOP frontrunner's campaign apparently couldn't.
I wonder if Romney has a "tell" like Bush did. Bush was famous for word-mangling Bushisms, but you could tell the things he actually cared about because he could speak perfectly coherently about them -- things like fishing. The recent New Yorker profile included a description of Romney speaking about health care, and noted how he gave a clear, logical speech about how his MA reforms worked, and then devolved into a mishmash of illogic and conservative red-meat lines when attempting to explain why it was nothing like "Obamacare." So I wonder if while he's able to give garden-variety campaign promises and give prepared speeches with whatever he's convinced himself his positions are this week, he's incapable of giving a non-canned response that he knows is BS.
Or perhaps I'm just too optimistic. Any MA residents want to weigh in?
jdb on July 01, 2011 5:22 PM:
The problem for the GOP is that Obama is unbeatable, without some economic or global disaster. Some GOP strategist somehow persuaded them to attack his character, patriotism, religion, etc., and the strategy backfired horribly. Looking back, the GOP must now realize that their only hope was to have been a party of solutions, not obstructions, and that Obama would start committing unforced errors, and that some intelligent, charismatic, solutions-driven candidate would emerge who could debate Obama as one adult to another. The Obama that we are going to see in the next year and a half will be confident, who compromises when necessary, but stands firm on core issues. In a sense, that Obama will be a creation of the GOP. It is possible that the 2nd term will be the bipartisan dream that many Americans have been looking forward to.
tanstaafl on July 01, 2011 5:52 PM:
What I expected Romney to do when challenged on this was to respond with the more nuanced view that Obama's policies have made the economy worse than they would have been.
There is no evidence to support this claim, and considerable evidence to refute it, but it is less clearly ridiculous than the claim he originally made. He could have obfuscated the issue, got the rest of the GOP to rally to his support (he is attacking President Obama!) and then when everyone had forgotten or dismissed the reporter's question, gone back to the simpler lie.
Now, however, he has shown himself to be not just a liar but a clumsy one. It probably won't hurt him as much as it should, but it will be a lot harder to brush off than most of his other flip-flops and gaffes.
Mark Halperin on July 02, 2011 3:57 AM:
This is great news for Republicans.
beejeez on July 02, 2011 9:05 AM:
I notice the Dems actually got a quick, smart response up on Mitt's gaffe. More of this, please.
bdop4 on July 02, 2011 9:27 AM:
Not to pick nits, but it's just "Google." Not "the Google."
Had the person who produced the ad ever used it?
CT Voter on July 02, 2011 12:09 PM:
bdop4: George Bush is the person who coined the phrase "The Google." He admitted to using "The Google."