Talk about a flat tire.
Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s latest attempt to re-write his own political history has gone about as smoothly as a cross country trip on a flat tire. Romney’s latest breathtaking shift was his attempt to take credit for the auto bailout that he had opposed in a big, high-media profile way (see the blow up of his New York Times op-ed above) — and that Congressional Republicans continue to criticize as part of their campaign narrative.
It has led to an explosion of stories on Google News — many of them truly dismayed or critical, but there are some GOP defenders (there is always someone on each side to spin something in a partisan way, no matter what). Blogs have had a field day.
There was amazement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe (my favorite political show):
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Jon Stewart had a lot of material to work with:
And his comments are generating lots of You Tube postings:
This could be a big problem for Romney, since this latest assertion will not just go away. He’ll have the issue of what he has said come up again and again — and will have to get into that area Republicans have always dissed and dreaded: nuance.
The net result? Many independent voters are going to conclude he is trying to use this:
UPDATE: Team Obama has responded to Romney’s claim with this ad:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.