Folks in Iowa--the ones who read newspapers and keep abreast of current events--are still scratching their heads about this stupid endorsement. Historically, the
Register has received a lot of criticism for being "left-leaning" when the main goal of most of the people there was to get the story right. Sure, the paper used to run Donald Kaul's "Over the Coffee" column in the opinion pages, and Kaul really bad-mouthed Richard Nixon, and today the paper gives a soapbox to Reka Basu, who seems to think that the powerless somehow deserve not to be trodden upon. But the newspaper also provided a forum for competing views, including but not limited to its "Two Cents" feature, in which the "conservative" point of view would be deftly presented by raving lunatics.
But historically, the
Register has taken its endorsements pretty seriously. This one is different.
Romney has been all over the board on issue after issue, saying one thing one day and a different thing the next. The assumption of the
Register seems to be that Romney will actually do the right thing when he gets the office, and that he will NOT do a lot of the things he promised last month that he would do. In the past, the
Register has railed against foolish candidate proposals, even if the candidate didn't mean them seriously or had no way to carry them out, and the
Register held that hypocrisy and inconsistency were bad qualities for a candidate to have. But this year, the
Register made an exception for Mitt.
This assumes that there are areas in which Romney has actually taken a stand. In many cases, he's simply been afraid to say how he will do the things he wants to do. In the past the
Register held a lack of candor against candidates. But this year, the
Register made an exception for Mitt.
The illogic of the
Register is shocking to a thinking person:
Romney could be assured that Democrats would work to defeat him as hard as Republicans worked against Obama is if he were to adopt the reactionary agenda of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. Romney had to tack to the right during the primary season. Since then, he has recalibrated his campaign to focus on his concern for the middle class, and that is believable if the real Mitt Romney is the one on display as governor of Massachusetts who passed a health care reform plan that became the model for the one passed by Congress.
Is this not saying that Romney was lying through his teeth to his base to get the nomination,
and that he had to do it, but when he becomes president, he'll be "Moderate Mitt?" Are these the sort of principles of integrity you want in a president, seriously?? Is taking contradictory positions the sort of thing that leads to a mandate??
And then there was this holwer:
Consumers must feel more confident about their own economic futures to begin spending on the products and services that power the economy. A renewed sense of confidence will spark renewed investment by American companies. Industry will return to full production and hiring will begin again.
That should come with Mitt Romney in the White House.
Wow, just by Romney's BEING there, not by actually doing anything, confidence will return and everyone will be happy. Is that wishful thinking or what? It didn't work for Reagan, it didn't work for Elder or Little Bush. But the
Register's pretty sure that if we close our eyes and clap our hands and say we believe in fairies, it will work this time, by golly.
And by the way, did anyone notice how many times George W. Bush was mentioned in the endorsement? Zero. Like he never existed. Yet Romney's running with Bush's crew, and Romney has touted--and continues to tout--Bush-like policies. Little Bush made a hell of a mess of the economy, and so it seems just a wee bit bizarre for the
Register to diss President Obama because, well, he couldn't clean up Little Bush's colossal economic mess.
