Romney believes in telling the truth and keeping his promises. But sometimes he wishes the truth or his promise had happened in a different way. He wishes he could change it. And in his mind, he does change it. He reinterprets his statements, positions, and pledges. He edits his motives and reasons. He compresses intervals. He inflates moments. He tightens the narrative. He rewrites his lines. Yet he always finds a thread of truth on which to hang his revised history. He’s a master of the technicality. ...Will Saletan at Slate
Of course -- and if Will Saletan understand Romney -- this isn't about truth. "Believing in telling the truth" isn't the same as telling the truth. Romney is telling stories, self-serving stories. He's a refined and better educated Rush Limbaugh with a somewhat different audience but morally he's on the same low level. A crude individual in a costly suit.
Saletan has a long and thorough examination of Mitt Romney's background and career. What Saletan reveals confirms most of what we fear in Romney. He's a man of dubious integrity. Jonathan Chait at Daily Intel, reading Saletan's research, focuses on Romney's serial evasions about his position vis-a-vis the national mandate. Romney's position changes too often to count.
Almost all the opposition research on Romney’s health care past has come from the media itself. Yet he has generally managed to squirm out of any serious damage. His interview with Kelly on Fox News yesterday offers a handy example of his evasive tactics. Kelly begins by showing the 2008 clip of Romney at a debate telling Gibson that he supported a national mandate.
Romney’s answer? He asserts that the issue has been raised “more than a hundred times,” and that he is willing to let states have an individual mandate. But, Kelly noted, this didn’t explain why he explicitly endorsed a national mandate. “Time and again,” Romney answered, “I have pointed out that I’m not in favor of a health care plan that includes a national mandate.”
All these evasions cleverly managed to imply something without quite stating it. Has the question been raised many times? Yes -- Romney has just never been forced to answer it. Did he favor letting states impose national mandates? Yes – but that’s not all he favored. Has Romney said he opposes a national mandate many times? Of course – since 2009, anyway.
But has Romney always opposed a national individual mandate? Absolutely not. ...Jonathan Chait, Daily Intel
The lies -- the circumventions of truth and blind alleys -- feel as though they come straight out of the Bush/Cheney administrations. Mitt Romney is revealing himself as someone who is just as real as one of their "weapons of mass destruction." Never did find those weapons. Not even Romney appears to have found the real Romney.