Mitt Wit

Mitt Romney seems to be following Bush’s no-apologies-under-any-circumstances lead. The former Massachusetts’ governor’s stubbornness was in full display recently, following the publication of photographs from a campaign stop in South Carolina. In the photographs, he was seen smiling from ear to ear, posing in front of a sign that read, “No to Obama, Osama and Chelsea’s Moma.”

"I don’t look at all the signs when I’m having pictures taken. I have a lot of pictures taken with people," Romney said. "I don’t really spend all that much time looking at the signs and the T-shirts and the buttons. I don’t have anything to say about a sign somebody else was holding."

Okay, but does he have to say anything about a sign he was holding? TMZ.com has obtained two photographs, one with Mitt simply posing behind the sign, but in the other, he is clearly holding the sign up. But who is holding the sign isn’t really the point; does he really expect people to believe he had no idea what the sign said? That he doesn’t have handlers telling him exactly where to stand, what photos to pose for? Can’t those people read? What if the sign said, “Mitt: Nitwit, Corporation Stock Split, Gay Marriage, Won’t Permit, Immigrants Thrown Under It”?

Are we really supposed to believe that Romney could just have easily made the mistake of posing in front of that sign? I don’t think so.

He is completely disingenuous when he says he never looked at the sign. Why can’t he just say, “Oh, that wasn’t a good decision to pose in front of that sign. Of course I don’t equate Obama and Hillary to Osama. Sorry.” Why is a sincere apology the politician’s equivalent of dropping his or her pants in public?

Romney has developed a reputation as a candidate who professes to change his mind on major issues in seemingly perfect synchronization with whatever office he’s running for. In campaigning for governor in Massachusetts, a very liberal state, he supported gay rights and abortion. Now, he’s against both as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination and needs to gain the support of the conservative base. He recently portrayed himself as a lifelong hunter, having gone, before deciding to run for president, on a hunting trip just once as a child.

As governor, he supported abstinence education and answered yes to this Planned Parenthood question, “Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?” Yet, he recently ripped Obama for supporting age-appropriate sex education to make sure kindergarten children know what type of touching is appropriate, saying, “Instead of teaching about sex education in kindergarten to 5-year-olds, let’s clean up the ocean of filth, the cesspool in which our children our swimming.”

Now, he seems to have changed his mind again on when and how a politician should apologize for an inappropriate remark or incident. Romney was interviewed in late 2006 on Fox News about the controversy over the joke Kerry made that seemed to disparage the intelligence of US troops in Iraq. Kerry had just issued an apology that Romney felt was a disguised attack against those Kerry felt were using the joke for political gain. In the interview, Romney said:
“ I think everyone in public life makes a slip or two but generally, if they make a mistake, they recognize it, they apologize immediately, and move on. What was surprising here is that he didn’t recognize the mistake and immediately went on the attack...”

Mitt’s reaction to the criticism about the sign was to tell everyone to “lighten up slightly.” Imagine if Kerry had said that after his joke misfiring? Kerry took two days to apologize. Well, Mitt, we’re waiting…