Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I'm back, baby!

That's right, blogfans, I've reentered the blogosphere. And in the interest of keeping the people's interest, at least in the short term, I hereby promise at least three (3!) new posts in the next several days, including at least one (1!) genuine insight. Here's a little something to whet your appetite:

Willard Mitt Romney was on This Week this week (ha!), and it made for one of the more enlightening Sunday talk shows I've ever seen. Because I went into it thinking, "Hey, Romney's a smooth character; he could be a threat somewhere down the road," and came out of it thinking, "Hahahahahaha." The man is so full of contradictory policy positions that it's coming out of his finely-coiffed ears. He was on for about thirty minutes, and in that span managed to unsatisfactorily answer at least five different questions about positions he very publicly held in years past that conflict (often quite violently) with positions he holds right now. And that's in thirty minutes with George Stephanopolous; Romney can expect far worse if he lasts long enough to get a full hour on Meet the Press.

The amusing conservatism of Romney's new campaign ad notwithstanding, I really couldn't tell you what the man actually believes. For all I know, he's had an honest change of heart, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that (as John Marshall Harlan famously said, "I would rather be right than consistent"). But John Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" is absolute child's-play compared to what Romney'll be facing in the near future. In his decade or so as a major public figure, he's managed to construct a record that's about as inconsistent as a record can be. And it's hard to cast yourself as an idealogue if you're confronted at every turn with video footage of yourself flatly denying the ideals that you're currently -loguing.

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