The hopeless decline of the liberal world!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012

Watching us act just like Fox: Last evening, the cry was made all over cable, from Hardball through the Maddow Show.

Let’s present the point as the hapless Gail Collins presents it this morning. Last evening, on pseudo-liberal cable, you saw the highlighted point belabored all night long:

COLLINS (10/11/12): You have to calm down, Democrats. Romney hasn’t turned into some new super-candidate. You were just underestimating him during September. He’s the same old Mitt. This week in Des Moines, he told an editorial board that he doesn’t have any plans for pushing anti-abortion bills if he’s elected. (“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”) Meanwhile, back at headquarters, his spokeswoman was assuring National Review that he “would, of course, support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.”

Maybe this will come up in the vice-presidential debate. Do you remember how well Joe Biden did against Sarah Palin?

Collins has one of the laziest minds in the known world. For the latest proof, just click here. (With several citations of Seamus!)

All last night, you saw that highlighted pair of statements presented as Romney’s latest flip-flop and/or contradiction. But that was just a big pile of crap—a marker of the liberal world’s headlong descent into the realm which once belonged only to Fox.

Is Romney involved in a new contradiction, a flip-flop? Just look at the two short statements there, even as they have been clipped.

In one statement, Romney says he knows of no legislation that would become part of his agenda. Is there some such proposed legislation that he is passing over?

We don't know what that would be. And no one felt the need to speak to this point last night on Our Own Liberal Fox.

In the second statement, a Romney aide says that he would be willing to support some such legislation. As anyone with two brain cells can see, that doesn’t contradict what Romney told the editorial board.

But so what! In truth, we liberals simply aren’t smart enough to create an actual politics! As the buffoons have always done on Fox, we have to gin up our cries of rage.

So it went all night on liberal cable, as we screamed about this fluff.

By the way: What did Romney really say to the board, if you read his fuller statement? At the Des Moines Register, Jennifer Jacobs gives her account of what happened.

More significantly, she provides the text of Romney’s fuller statement:

JACOBS (10/10/12): In the face of polls indicating eroding voter support and a shrinking gender gap, Obama aides worked feverishly Wednesday to try to enmesh Mitt Romney in a controversy over his abortion stance, turning a 30-second slice of a 40-minute interview in Iowa into a hotly discussed national news story.

Romney told The Des Moines Register’s editorial board Tuesday there’s no legislation regarding abortion “that would become part of my agenda.” The remark sparked a tidal wave of spin from Obama backers, even as Romney backers stated that he had not reversed his anti-abortion position in any way and has maintained consistency since he began running for president.

[...]

So, here's what Romney really said

Here’s an instant replay of what happened:

During a meeting before a campaign rally at a family farm in Van Meter Tuesday, The Des Moines Register’s political editor followed up a question about legislation on women’s issues by asking Romney if he intends “to pursue any legislation specifically regarding abortion.”

Romney answered: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda. One thing I would change, however, which would be done by executive order, not by legislation, is that I would reinstate the Mexico City policy, which is that foreign aid dollars from the United States would not be used to carry out abortion in other countries. It’s long been our practice here that taxpayer dollars are not to be used to fund abortion in this country. President Obama on the 10th day of his administration changed the Mexico City policy to say that abortion services were not prohibited in our foreign aid dollars. I would go back to the original so-called Mexico City policy.”

The Obama re-election campaign immediately seized on those remarks, drumming up news coverage by reaching out to reporters in emails and phone calls. And their comments quickly caught fire in the Twitter-verse and mainstream media.

Read that fuller statement by Romney. Does that sound like someone who is trying to hide his anti-abortion stance?

To our ear, it sounds like Romney couldn’t think of a piece of legislation to endorse, then compensated by offering a long spiel about Mexico City.

But that is all speculation. In the real world, there is no contradiction between Romney’s statement and the subsequent statement made by his spokesperson. Nor did Romney contradict some previous stance he has taken.

But so what? We need to offer cries of rage. And in truth, we don’t really know how.

By light years, Romney is the worst nominee for president of the modern era. He is a horrible candidate.

Despite that, our side is unable to formulate a serious case against him. We could all see that very clearly when Obama debated last week.

The gent arrived with nothing to say. But then, all summer long, our strategy had been the following: Wait for Romney to make a gaffe. Then, yell loud and long.

We don’t know how to build real claims, from our hapless president down. (He was just too polite!)

Sorry. There’s no contradiction in what Romney said to that editorial board. As far as we know, he didn’t reverse some previous stance.

The children looked very feeble last night. Good lord! We are so much like the buffoons we once mocked at Fox!

Our next post: Same problem, different horseshit