Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:36 am
Even with Bob Schieffer being as gentle as only the corporate media can, there is no escaping the conclusion that Mitt Romney bombed his first non-Fox Sunday morning interview.
This interview went wrong in so many ways.
Here is Mitt Romney dodging Bob Schieffer’s questions about whether or not he would repeal President Obama’s change in immigration policy:
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SCHIEFFER: “[W]ould you repeal [Obama’s immigration] order if you became president?” …
ROMNEY: “This is something Congress has been working on, and I thought we were about to see some proposals brought forward by Senator Marco Rubio and by Democrat senators, but the President jumped in and said I’m going to take this action … [H]e was president for the last three and a half years and did nothing on immigration. Two years he had a Democrat House and Senate, did nothing of a permanent or long-term basis. What I would do, is I’d make sure that by coming into office, I would work with Congress to put in place a long-term solution for the children of those that have come here illegally.” …
SCHIEFFER: “But would you repeal this?” …
ROMNEY: “[M]y anticipation is I’d come into office and say we need to get this done, on a long-term basis, not this kind of stop-gap measure. What the president did, he should have worked on this years ago, if he felt seriously about this he should have taken action when he had a Democrat House and Senate, but he didn’t. He saves these sort of things until four and a half months before the general election.” …
Schieffer had to ask Romney five times about Obama’s immigration change, and his answer was…..nothing.
Romney was successful in pivoting from dodging answers to blatantly omitting the truth from his tax plan.
Here’s Mitt’s song and dance on taxing the wealthy:
Romney repeatedly claimed that cutting taxes for everyone would spur economic growth, and he also promised that the wealthy would not pay more in taxes. What Romney left out was that poor and middle class taxpayers would see their taxes go up because of deductions that would be eliminated. As everyone else pays more, the wealthy would see a 20% tax cut on top of the Bush tax cuts. Romney wasn’t lying when he said the wealthy wouldn’t pay more, but he didn’t bother to tell America that they would be paying a lot less under his plan.
It took him three minutes of long winded dodging and babbling about the tax code before he finally admitted the rich would not pay more under his plan.
Way to connect with America, Mittens!!!
When asked about how he would unify the country, Romney’s big pitch was that he doesn’t care about reelections:
Romney said, “I don’t care about re-elections, I don’t care about the partisanship that goes on. I want to get America right.” Wow, what a visionary. Could it be that he doesn’t care about reelections yet, because he hasn’t been elected?
Despite the fact that Bob Schieffer tried to be as gentle as possible with the timid creature known as Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee demonstrated why he doesn’t stray very far away from Fox News.
Face The Nation’s Bob Schieffer and Mitt Romney enjoy a romantic stroll in Pennsylvania.
Schieffer and Romney walked and you could almost see the CBS News veteran take the Republican nominee’s hand in his and whisper, “It’s okay, big fella’, I’m going to take care of you.”
Schieffer tried to take care of Romney. Everything from the setting — Romney was outdoors, not in the studio – to the staging of the Romney bus pulling up to the cheers of likely campaign staffers as Bob Schieffer opened the show was designed to make the Republican nominee look good.
But Romney didn’t look good, he struck out on softballs.
This interview didn’t humanize or present Mitt Romney as a better alternative to Obama. Schieffer’s questions were simple. The Romney campaign should have been prepared for them days ago, yet there Romney was fumbling, bumbling, and dodging through seventeen painful minutes.
Romney’s first network Sunday morning news show interview should have been big news, but the only news coming out of it was just how bad Romney was.
The Face The Nation appearance reinforced the notion that rich boy Romney folds like a cheap tent when the slightest bit of pressure is applied on him.
At times Romney’s babbles and dodges reminded one of another Republican candidate who avoided the mainstream media at all costs, but unlike Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin actually had more broadcast interviews early in her campaign than Mitt Romney has. By design, Romney has been more sheltered from the mainstream press than Sarah Palin was in the early fall of 2008.
One look at Romney on Face The Nation was all it took to explain why. Romney doesn’t possess Palin’s happy ignorance, but he shares with her an inability to give a straight answer and a genuine lack of substance.
Obama put a bullet in Bin Laden’s brain. Romney can’t tell us if he will repeal the new immigration policy, or what tax deductions he will eliminate without talking to Congress first.
This difference may end up being the biggest reason why Obama is the president, and Romney never might be.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
