Quote of the Day: Dionne on Romney's Swerve to the Center

As Mitt Romney seems to be frantically swerving to the center in recognition that far right positions will not get him elected, the real question becomes what, if anything, does Romney really believe and what would he do in office.  The answer is frankly that no one knows for sure since Romney seems only driven by opportunism and a willingness to say whatever he thinks most people want to hear.  In a column in the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne sums it up well.  Here ares some telling quotes from the column:

His [Romney's] strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too’s.

The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think?

Almost all of the analysis of Romney’s highly public burning of the right’s catechism focuses on such tactical issues as whether his betrayal of principle will help him win over middle-of-the-road women and carry Ohio.

The total rout of the right’s ideology, particularly its neoconservative brand, was visible in Monday’s debate, in which Romney praised one Obama foreign policy initiative after another. He calmly abandoned much of what he had said during the previous 18 months.  

The biggest sign that tea party thinking is dead is Romney’s straight-out deception about his past position on the rescue of the auto industry. .  .  .  .  This would be the same Mitt Romney who tried to pretend on Monday that he never said what he said or thought what he thought. 

I do not trust Romney whatsoever.  He is perhaps the biggest liar we've seen in politics in many years - and that is frightening.  It's also frightening that some voters seem prepared to believe the lies.

Pulling the Curtain on Sarah Palin

As news stories in the Washington Post and elsewhere are running about the manner in which Alaska Governor Sarah Palin charged the state for the better part of a year of nights she stayed in her own home (can I get that deal?), E.J. Dionne has a great column that looks at not only Palin's unfitness for the VP slot, but also the idiocy of John McCain selecting her in the first place. First, here are highlights from the WP on the billing issue:

*

ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

*

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

*

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

*

Whether or not technically legal, the charges surely do not set a good example for cutting government costs and waste. If Palin's family did not want to move to Juneau - Virginia governors and their families move to Richmond - it would seem that the costs of voluntarily "commuting" and staying in one's own home should not be a cost to taxpayers even if Alaska is awash in oil money. As for Dionne's column, here are some highlights:

*

John McCain's campaign acknowledged this weekend that Sarah Palin is unprepared to be vice president or president of the United States. Of course, McCain's people said no such thing. But their actions told you all you needed to know.

*

McCain's advisers clearly don't trust Palin to answer questions about policy and don't want her to answer many of the questions that have been raised about her tenure as governor of Alaska. Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her "with some level of respect and deference."

*

Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give "deference" to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference?

*

A week ago, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times cited McCain sources questioning "how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket." She reported that Palin had been selected "with more haste than McCain advisers initially described." (She also mistakenly reported that Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party. It was her husband, Todd, who had been a member.) It turned out that the McCain side misled journalists. Bumiller was right about the vetting. The lesson is that McCain's counselors are not interested in fair treatment, and they are certainly not interested in the truth.

*

[W]hat matters is not Palin's personal life but whether she is prepared to assume the presidency if called upon. The actions of McCain's lieutenants suggest that they know the answer. And they are doing everything they can to keep the media from finding it.