MITT ROMNEY ACCUSES BARACK OBAMA OF TREASON FOR FORCING AMERICA TO ADOPT ROMNEYCARE
Source of quote unknown. H/T DeLong, others
Newsweek:
Absurdly Premature 2012 Watch, Vol. 12: Romney's Ridiculous Response to Obamacare
Andrew Romano
For a little while there, Mitt Romney was beginning to act like a humanoid. In order to position himself as the "grown-up" 2012 alternative to the rabble-rousing right-wing fringe (see: Palin, Sarah), the former Massachusetts governor has spent the past few months shedding the ill-fitting, hardcore conservatism of his 2008 run and staking out reasonable positions on a number of important issues. He has admitted, for example, that the Democratic stimulus package "will accelerate" America's economic recovery. He has defended the necessity of the TARP program. He has even called global warming a "real and present danger." As the Boston Phoenix's David S. Bernstein puts it, "this latest incarnation is probably the closest we have seen to the "real" Mitt Romney-who close observers believe doesn't care much about social issues, isn't very ideological, and revels in applying management skills to large organizations to help them achieve their goals and functions."
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when Romney's aggressive statement on the passage of Obamacare landed in my inbox around 10 a.m. this morning. Highlights:
America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation-rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better ... It is an historic usurpation of the legislative process-he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with patently fraudulent accounting. What Barack Obama has ushered into the American political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, "what starts twisted, ends twisted" ... For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today.
If this is Romney's strategy for unseating Obama in 2012, he's in trouble. It's not just that politics of repealing reform will be disastrous for Republicans, as my Gaggle colleague Katie Connolly explained earlier today. It's that Romney is a completely unconvincing advocate for the argument he's trying to make. As I've written before, the biggest roadblock to Romney receiving the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is the fact that he proposed and passed a health-care reform plan in Massachusetts that's almost identical to Obama's-except without any of the cost controls, making it less fiscally responsible, and therefore less conservative, than the new national law...
Newsweek:
Absurdly Premature 2012 Watch, Vol. 12: Romney's Ridiculous Response to Obamacare
Andrew Romano
For a little while there, Mitt Romney was beginning to act like a humanoid. In order to position himself as the "grown-up" 2012 alternative to the rabble-rousing right-wing fringe (see: Palin, Sarah), the former Massachusetts governor has spent the past few months shedding the ill-fitting, hardcore conservatism of his 2008 run and staking out reasonable positions on a number of important issues. He has admitted, for example, that the Democratic stimulus package "will accelerate" America's economic recovery. He has defended the necessity of the TARP program. He has even called global warming a "real and present danger." As the Boston Phoenix's David S. Bernstein puts it, "this latest incarnation is probably the closest we have seen to the "real" Mitt Romney-who close observers believe doesn't care much about social issues, isn't very ideological, and revels in applying management skills to large organizations to help them achieve their goals and functions."
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when Romney's aggressive statement on the passage of Obamacare landed in my inbox around 10 a.m. this morning. Highlights:
America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation-rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better ... It is an historic usurpation of the legislative process-he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with patently fraudulent accounting. What Barack Obama has ushered into the American political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, "what starts twisted, ends twisted" ... For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today.
If this is Romney's strategy for unseating Obama in 2012, he's in trouble. It's not just that politics of repealing reform will be disastrous for Republicans, as my Gaggle colleague Katie Connolly explained earlier today. It's that Romney is a completely unconvincing advocate for the argument he's trying to make. As I've written before, the biggest roadblock to Romney receiving the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is the fact that he proposed and passed a health-care reform plan in Massachusetts that's almost identical to Obama's-except without any of the cost controls, making it less fiscally responsible, and therefore less conservative, than the new national law...