Mitt Meltdown

Have you seen the Bret Baier interview of Mitt Romney (Part I, Part II)?  It was a typical FOX / Baier interview - he asks relevant, tough questions, then followed them up.  And Mitt wasn't too happy with that, as he showed both during and after the interview.  He took obvious exception to even being asked about Romney care, then, according to Baier, came back after the interview and complained that the interview was unfair.



That is petulance unbound.  There is nothing Bret Baier asked that was unfair.  Indeed, as Hot Air notes, Baier did an exceptional job of distilling down conservative's reservations about Romney, and gave Romney an opportunity to respond at length.  For example:

BAIER: Like the “Union Leader,” your critics charge that you make decisions based on political expediency and not core conviction. You have been on the both sides of some issues, and there’s videotape of you going back years, speaking about different issues, climate change, abortion, immigration, gay rights.  How can voters trust what they hear from you today is what you will believe if you win the White House?

It seems apparent that Mitt assumed that he would skate into the nomination this year.  He had the name recognition from 2008 and he had organization and money in place.  He adopted a defensive strategy, keeping away from Iowa and limiting his exposure to actual journalists, particularly the people at FOX news.  And now that his lead in the polls has dropped to Gingrich, Mitt is actually having to dump his game plan and expose himself to the same type of questioning that every one of the other candidates (Republican candidates only, of course) have had to face.  And he thinks that it's unfair to be asked about his record?

This does not leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling about Mitt's fitness for office.  And that is not the only thing that has given me pause.  There was the incident not long ago when Mitt released an ad attacking Obama that took an Obama quote completely out of context.

:

As pointed out in the video, the problem is that Obama was only quoting a McCain aide during the 2008 campaign.  That is so disingenuous as to be jaw dropping.  When called on it, Romney not only refused to apologize, but embraced the use of the quote.

If this is an example of how Mitt intends to wage his campaign, then Mitt's supposed popularity among independents will utterly disappear.  At this point, it would take a lot to cede the moral high ground to the disaster currently in office, but waging a campaign as disingenuous as that ad would be the one way to do it.  If Mitt keeps up with this petulance and intellectual dishonesty, he stands no chance of being elected.