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Reporters asked Mitt Romney on Wednesday to defend the blatant, shameless dishonesty of his first television ad. Here’s what he came up with.
“There was no hidden effort on the part of our campaign,” he said. “It was instead to point out that what’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander.”
As a puzzled look fell over the eyes of a few reporters at a press conference, Mr. Romney added: “This ad points out that guess what? It’s now your turn. The same lines that you used on John McCain are now going to be used on you.”
The conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney is an intelligent person. I’m not sure how much more it will take to convince the political world to reevaluate these assumptions.
The defense is just idiotic. Romney knowingly took words out of context, and changed the meaning of a sentence, for the sole purpose of misleading the public. “Sauce for the gander”? What is that even supposed to mean? If Obama had taken McCain’s comments out of context to deceive voters, this might be slightly less ridiculous. But the president didn’t do this, and that’s apparently not the point Romney is trying to make, anyway.
Rather, the Republican is effectively trying to say, “Obama criticized the McCain campaign, so we get to make stuff up about Obama.” And when pressed, Romney is entirely comfortable arguing that the basics of a healthy discourse — truths, facts, fairness, honor — are now irrelevant.
No one should want to be president this badly.
Yesterday, the New York Daily News said Romney’s defense is evidence he’s “signaling he’s ready for bare-knuckled campaigning.” Nonsense. He’s signaling he’s ready to say or do anything — including deliberately deceive Americans — to further his ambitions. That’s not evidence of “bare-knuckled campaigning”; that’s evidence of a severe character problem.
The DNC, meanwhile, put together a video response, noting media reactions to Romney’s lie, which struck me as pretty compelling.
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DAY on November 25, 2011 8:10 AM:
Good ad. Will we see it anywhere, but here?
Or is the DNC saving its millions for something else?
If so, one hopes it is for registering and GOTV!
Josef K on November 25, 2011 8:13 AM:
The defense is just idiotic.
Given the typical American voter has shown only limited attention span, memory, and analytic focus, this is actually a pretty good one on Romney's part. He can claim whatever he wishes and will still be trusted to speak 'the truth'.
Nonsense. He’s signaling he’s ready to say or do anything — including deliberately deceive Americans — to further his ambitions.
That's pretty much the definition of "bare-knuckle campaigning", isn't it? Oh, its all kinds of wrong and thoroughly destructive to our already-damaged politics, but fair's fair to Romney's willingness to tear down every bit of decency and stability we know to get into the White House. You can't fault him necessarily for ambition here.
Well you can, but that's a different discussion entirely.
Skip on November 25, 2011 8:16 AM:
This is what you have to do when you have no substantive platform on which to run, nor any concrete plan to present to the voters in which you outline solutions for a better America.
All Mittens has for a platform is tearing down the hard-working incumbent who is pulling this nation in an upward direction in spite of everything the Republican Party has done and are doing to inhibit him.
It's all any of these conservative candidates have brought to the table. When the right said they'd be America's moral and economic saviors, we got G. W. Bush and the collapse of our nation's economy. When the right said it again, we got Teabaggers who've done nothing, and worked to ensure nothing got done.
I guess the question is just how many times can even a Main Street Republican voter allow him/herself to be fooled, just to maintain the illusion that they are playing on the winning team?
c u n d gulag on November 25, 2011 8:17 AM:
"It was instead to point out that what's sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander."
The meaning here is clear.
Our Kenyan/Socialist/Communist/Islamo/Fascist/Heathen/ Muslim President likes his holiday geese and gander's to be Halal - JUST like the turkey's Pam Geller warned about!
And what Mitt means is you need counter that Godless foreign sh*t with some good-old Jesus Sauce, like sausage gravy - made with good old American pork, to drive off the Heathen Kosher and Halal spirits now in the birds.
Or, he could be saying that just like with Christian Americans, marriage is between one goose and one gander.
(I wonder, is he lying? IS he hiding the fact that a Mormon gander have more than one goose, meaning he's talking about a more "saucy" marriage?"
Or, he could be a f*cking idiot.
My money's on choice #3.
karen marie on November 25, 2011 8:19 AM:
I would say this video is a fail. It makes a simple proposition confused -- "That was something Obama said that a McCain aide said."
This line at the beginning muddies the waters right off the bat. "Obama said someone else said something almost four years ago."
What?
Who was Obama quoting?
There are far better ways this opening line could have been phrased that wouldn't render this ad just another round of political whining.
Also, it goes on waaaaaay too long. It would have been far more effective, IMO, if it were 30 seconds and kept to the essentials. Seems to me, whoever made it was looking to show off their skillz as a video editor and placed "effectiveness" way down the list of priorities.
If the Obama campaign wants to convince voters that Romney is a truth-challenged candidate, they're going to have to do better than this.
Simon S. on November 25, 2011 8:57 AM:
No, Romney's defense isn't nonsensical: it would be a perfectly legitimate thing to say if only his team had made a smarter ad.
A legitimate and fair, but tough, Romney ad would have made clear that Obama's words were him quoting the McCain campaign, and then said, "Guess what, Obama? This time around, those words apply to you." That's where Romney's defense of "sauce for the goose" comes in. He's thinking about an ad that did that, and doesn't realize that his ad didn't do it.
Of course there's still room for rebuttal about how much the current economy is Obama's fault, but it would be a legitimate Republican campaign strategy to say the tables have turned. What's illegitimate is to make it look as if Obama's the one who said it.
RepublicanPointOfView on November 25, 2011 9:02 AM:
It's just politics.
Both sides do it.
Some democrats say that Mitt Romney is inaccurate. Republicans say that it is not inaccurate.
He said that he said is all that he said.
Eventually, when Mitt is our candidate for president, our corporately owned media will do their best to avoid saying that Mitt lies and will do their best to confuse the Amerikkkan Sheeple about what is the truth. Of course that is with the exception of our Fox News who declare that Obama is lying.
When the truth is an impediment to electing a republican to regain the power of the White House, truth becomes unimportant.
DisgustedWithItAll on November 25, 2011 9:08 AM:
Bad ad by the Democrats. Loses focus. Better:
1) Show the part of the Romney ad taking Obama's words out of context.
2) Show Obama saying what Romney took out of context.
3) For 15 seconds, silence with this is big white letters on a black screen: Mitt Romney is a LIAR.
j on November 25, 2011 9:19 AM:
Romney really is a nasty man with no principles whatever, my latest beef with him -
In the debate when he was being so hard on hispanics that have lived in the US all of their lives and his 'no exception' rule for residency, my immediate thought was why did no-one ask him about the hispanics that loved the US so much they fought and died for it which none of his 5 sons would dream of doing.
DZ on November 25, 2011 9:59 AM:
To watch this story unfold, with the same Washington press corps that savaged Al Gore for imagined lies listening respectfully to Romney's deliberate, shameless deception, is sickening.
Montana on November 25, 2011 10:02 AM:
Why isn't there truth in advertising in political ads?
Ads like these and Karl Rove's against Tester last month should make politicians left, right and center rush through some sort of legislation to protect themselves if not the consumers.
As the little captcha down below spells out in bold: dereliction xstrie[m]
[A belated thanks-giving to Steve Benen and all the thoughtful posters here from whom I learn so much.]
Marko on November 25, 2011 10:24 AM:
If this is what passes for Republican "principles" (isn't that what George W. Bush ran on against Al Gore after the Clinton debacle?), I really think the party has lost its way.
MNRD on November 25, 2011 11:06 AM:
Think about what Romney and his team have done. They have literally taken footage of the President of the United States and doctored that footage to make it appear as though the President of the United States is saying the opposite of what he was in fact saying! Then, to top it off, when confronted with what they've done, they say that they did this DELIBERATELY!
This goes beyond lying. This is openly dishonoring the Office of the Presidency itself. If Romney continues to insist that this is legitimate - if Romney does not drastically walk this back - I think that it would be disqualifying. It would prove that Romney does not have the basic respect for the Office of the Presidency that would make him fit to hold the Office of the Presidency.
Furthermore, I believe that the majority of moderates and independents would find Romney's attitude to be disqualifying. If I am right about that, then a failure to drastically walk this back would make Romney UNELECTABLE. If Romney does not get the Republican nomination for President in 2012, I think that we will look back on this as being the moment when Romney lost the nomination.
Asm on November 25, 2011 12:05 PM:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39489_New_Ad-_Mitt_Romney_For_Obama_2012
sparrow on November 25, 2011 12:12 PM:
Romney is failing the trust test? Since when is that only now a shocking revelation? He's been proving his untrustworthiness since the get-go.
Sabo Pike on November 25, 2011 12:36 PM:
While getting people talking about you may be a good tactic, was it wise of Romney to remind voters that the nation is still trying to get out of the economic situation created by its last Republican president?
Rick Massimo on November 25, 2011 12:46 PM:
I'd slip any of these reporters $50 to ask Mitt Romney, "Is there anything you WON'T do to become president?"
Cha on November 25, 2011 1:25 PM:
@ Asm
Brawawawaa.. thanks for that "Mitt for Obama 2012" Ad! roflmaO
I've seen this ad from the DNC,"Romney: Deceive America" all over the place and I like it. Especially zeroing in on that giggling mitt spokesgirl who said they weren't trying to deceive anyone. Ooops.
Is there anything mitt won't stoop to..thinking it will get him a vote..short of murder? A fair question. Willard is showing how he'd be as a president..forcing his asshole policies on everybody while stuffing his billionaire donors's pockets with sweets deals until the money is coming out of all their orifices.
Thanks Steve for getting the ad around even more.
tamiasmin on November 25, 2011 3:33 PM:
Apart from the politics, there's the substance.
"If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose."
It's not likely that Obama believes that about his own campaign, because he does keep talking about the economy. He thinks it's important for voters to know what his administration has been trying to do to improve conditions, and how Republicans have been obstructing those efforts at every turn.
Romney's ad is not only dishonest, it's don't-believe-your-own-ears stupid.
exlibra on November 25, 2011 5:37 PM:
Asm, @12:05PM,
Thanks for that ad; it's in Romney's voice, it must be true :)
DAY, @8:10AM,
DNC effort appears to be meant strictly for the delectation of the blogging left. At 87seconds, it's (almost) three times as long as an average ad (and average watcher's attention span, as calculated by the most experienced peddlers).