Despite his
vow to avoid attacks on fellow Republicans, Mitt Romney (Phelan Ebenhack/Reuters)
continues to unload on Newt Gingrich (Chris Keane/Reuters)
Okay,
this is really funny:
“He has been an extraordinarily unreliable leader in the conservative world — not 16 or 17 years ago but in the last two to three years,” Romney said. “And even during the campaign, the number of times he has moved from one spot to another has been remarkable. I think he’s shown a level of unreliability as a conservative leader today.”
It's hilarious enough to see Mitt Romney accuse someone else of flip-flopping, but the thing that's so fantastic about this line of argument isn't so much the attack on Gingrich as it is Romney's blatant attempt to construct a self-serving standard for being a reliable conservative. Note that Romney's basic accusation—that Gingrich is an inconsistent conservative—comes with a big caveat: "not 16 or 17 years ago but in the last two to three years."
Obviously, Romney trying make the case that Newt Gingrich's unimpeachable conservative credential—the 1994 elections in which Republicans reclaimed the House for the first time in a half-century—is irrelevant. But it's not just that: he's trying to say that his own record is irrelevant—at least up until the 2008 campaign. So not only does he want Republicans to ignore Gingrich's record, he also wants them to ignore everything from his 1994 opposition to the Contract With America to his 2002 declaration that he is "progressive" to his subsequent support for an individual mandate, not to mention his repudiation of the Reagan-Bush years and his repeated pledge to protect a woman's right to choose.
Unfortunately for Romney, nobody will take his caveat seriously. In fact, in the same interview in which he tried to construct it, he was forced to address the most obvious contrast between his political record and Newt Gingrich's: the 1994 election.
Romney declined to sign the Contract With America, the Gingrich-led campaign manifesto for GOP candidates that fall. In a debate with Kennedy in the fall of 1994, Romney also distanced himself from the administration of President Ronald Reagan, claiming “I was an independent” during those years.
“I applaud the fact that he was wise in crafting the Contract With America,” Romney said of Gingrich on Tuesday. “I didn’t think it was a very good political step. He was right; I was wrong.”
The thing that leaps out at me about that defense is that Romney is defending his 1994 opposition to Gingrich in political terms: "I didn't think it was a very good political step." Along with "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake," that's one of the most honest things Mitt Romney has ever said. The problem is that in his honesty he is admitting that the position he took was about political expediency, not core conviction—and that's an admission that underscores the core critique of Mitt Romney: you can't trust what he says.