Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan took a victory lap on the Hannity show tonight. Well into the interview, Hannity brought up Romney’s 47% video. “What would you have said if (President Obama) did bring it up?” Hannity asked. I’ve got to think Hannity knew that Romney wanted to address the matter. Otherwise, it’s way out of character for him to bring up something detrimental to his candidate at a time like this. Sure enough, it was time for some Romney Rehab - but in the form of a flip-flop. Suddenly, Romney is a man of the 100%.
Hannity raised the issue at about 7:19 into the video below, which is Part 2 of the interview. Romney responded:
Clearly in a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands, of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case, I said something that’s just completely wrong. And I absolutely believe however that my life has shown that I care about 100%. And that’s been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100%. When I become president, it will be about helping the 100%.
As I pointed out last night in the debate, the rich in this country are actually doing better under President Obama. The gap between the rich and the poor has gotten larger. The rich will probably do fine, even if he’s re-elected. It’s the middle class that’s in real trouble if President Obama’s re-elected. And the poor. I want the poor to get into the middle class… So this for me is all about the 100%.
This is quite a departure from Romney’s previous stance on his 47% comments. Last month, in a hastily-called press conference, he was unapologetic:
Well, you know, it’s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I’m speaking off the cuff in response to a question and I’m sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that. And so I’m sure I’ll point that out as time goes on… But it’s a message which I’m going to carry and continue to carry which is look. The president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because, frankly, my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them and therefore I’m not likely to draw them into my campaign as effectively to those in the middle.
Hannity pretended he didn’t notice this latest flip-flop from Romney.
That’s why I find it so perplexing when Fox attacks the mainstream media for bias. CNN, for example, is pretty much on the same page as Fox, but other sources outside the USA (BBC, France24, RAI24, AlJazeera/English and even SkyItalia which is owned by NewsCorp) are often on entirely different pages with respect both to Fox and CNN. And those outside sources often concur.
On the subject of those jobs numbers: the data collection method does seem to be more “rule of thumb” than scientific, but it’s been accepted by all for such a long time that it’s silly to contest it now. Using the same method also makes it possible to define trends (I think that may be the main reason for not changing methods). I remember someone on this blog saying that the first numbers are subject to fine-tuning as more information comes in, hence their variability is actually part of the procedure. Everybody knows that so it shouldn’t be a problem.
What never changes, however, is the propensity of human beings to contest any findings perceived as “unacceptable”. Bearing in mind their skepticism about the polls when the latter showed President Obama in the lead, I eagerly await the foxy reaction to the post-debate polls. Never a dull moment on Fox.
Perchance, are you the same “Kathy” at PoliticusUSA.com who said,
Come on, people letâs not get all âRepublicans are thugs.â
I question the polls â especially because people who canât find jobs and have given up arenât counted. And really, how accurate can this be, doing surveys of people.
Sorry to dissapoint, but Iâm a liberal and I think the numbers are a joke.
http://www.politicususa.com/wing-conspiracy-theorists-attack-job-numbers-pathetic.html#comments
If so, may I direct you to Paws’ response in that same thread:
“The numbers are not âcooked.â It would be virtually impossible to fudge the numbers here and if the President could influence them, donât you think he would have been doing that all along? Donât you think Bush would have done it when we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month?
“It is very sad that the right is basically rooting for the American economy to fail just so they can gain political points. Itâs quite disheartening to see lawmakers joining the chorus as well.”
I might add that while you claim to be a liberal, your leap to defend the possibility that the numbers aren’t accurate sounds suspiciously right-leaning.
âItâs just not good enough given that we have an unemployment rate close to 8%.â Mark Zandi, chief U.S. economist at Moodyâs Analytics
Keep moving those goalposts, guys.
After nearly two years of screaming about the UE rate being the same for “43 consecutive months,” rather than applaud a positive change, all the right can do is yell, “well, it STILL ain’t good enough!”
Hey, wingnuts — you’ve been wondering all this time what the “October Surprise” would be? I think the jobs numbers was it; it just turned out to be a surprise for RMoney . . .
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@Visitor55, Re — the unemployment rate:
I turned on CNBC this morning, and some Romney campaign aide was already in spin mode.
ROFL — in less than 24 hours, the Rmoney campaign has gone from high-fiving each other over the debate to spinning good news for the President . . .
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Some say that MagicUnderwear Mitt may be a better liar that Lying Ryan or even KKKlannity.
Psychopaths lie a lot but they are not skilled liars. Their speech is filled with inconsistent & contradictory statements. Their thoughts & ideas are broken down into small mental packages and readily moved around. These packages are devoid of emotional meaning. They can recombine them in a variety of ways. They frequently change topic, go off track & fail to connect phrases & sentences in a straightforward manner. Psychopaths are notorious for not answering the question put to them or for answering in a way that seems unresponsive to the question.
The game changer was, as Ike said. the post WWII Industrial Military Complex.
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence â economic, political, even spiritual â is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Everyone, conservatives included, should realize this ended the cause of small government. The wealthy take from everyone to maintain this State of Fear.
Mitt exhibits a pathology such that “getting caught on camera” is a non-issue. Mitt simply makes up reality as he goes along, no regrets. If Mitt is elected America will have it’s first Psychopath-in-Chief.
It was most likely prearranged that Sean would ask him about it before the interview with Mitt’s prepared response to help get the story out there. It’s the usual Fox News trick of the teacher giving the student the questions before the test.
The only thing he’s really sorry for is he got caught on camera.
That, or Mitt supporters are natural-born flip-floppers? (Hint – look for the ring in their nose)
So when Mr Romney says he was wrong for his comment, it doesn’t make his supporters who cheered it on and agreed with his 47% comments look very good.
Yikes.
During the debate, Romney actually said he was proud of his health care law enacted while he was Governor of MA and admitted that it was similar (or identical) to Obamacare. Could be wrong, but I don’t remember his saying that before: more like he wanted to sweep that accomplishment under the carpet.
Anyway, aother area where he may be ready to flip-flop is taxation. He promised very energetically that he will never raise taxes on the middle class. Problem is that there’s no way in hail (a foxy euphemism I’ve become particularly fond of) that he can maintain the Bush tax cuts for the rich AND boost spending on defense. Something’s a-gotta give and the middle class won’t have as much clout as the 1%, including those disgruntled defense contractors.
Funny how that story about layoffs by Lockheed Martin came up so handily for Mitteo Rominguez (h/t to Chico for a great nickname that I shall be using a lot).
Ellen, you’re being entirely too generous. It wasn’t a case where Hannity “pretended he didn’t notice”; he simply IGNORED the flip-flop.
That behavior is de rigueur for the right-wing noise machine, especially if it helps “their” candidate overcome his stupidity.
Can’t wait to hear Rushbo’s take on that, since he wanted Willard to wear the 47% comment like a badge of honor.
Anyway, what a perfect match: the biggest liar in decades of presidential elections, who wants to become Liar-in-Chief, taking a “victory lap” with the media’s most prolific liar. They both reek!