We probably don't have much longer to enjoy absurd Newtisms like these
Politico is
reporting this as Newt Gingrich backing off his attacks on Mitt Romney, but it actually sounds more like Newt is trying to deflect the backlash against his attack onto President Obama:
“I’m here to implore one thing of you. I think you’ve missed the target on the way you’re addressing Romney’s weaknesses. I want to beg you to redirect and go after his obvious disingenuousness about his conservatism and lay off the corporatist versus the free market. I think it’s nuanced,” said Dean Glossop, an Army Reservist from Inman, S.C., said.
“I agree with you,” Gingrich said. “It’s an impossible theme to talk about with Obama in the background. Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect. … I agree with you entirely.”
Obviously, it's total nonsense for Newt to blame President Obama for the backlash from a pro-Gingrich Super PAC. But he's not backing off. If he were, he'd get his Super PAC to stop attacking Romney. But that's not happening.
“Newt isn’t backing off holding Romney accountable,” Hammond said. “He may have been sympathetic to the questioner but that doesn’t mean Romney won’t have to answer questions.”
Hammond argued the super PAC film was not actually about Bain specifically.
“It’s the decisions that Romney was making as CEO that are under review of public opinion,” Hammond said. “We’re not bringing Bain up, we’re responding to questions” prompted by the video.
Bain is Newt's last stand. He's not going to apologize for raising it until after he loses the primary, and then he'll say he was doing Mitt Romney a favor. Romney, for his part, will robotically accept Newt's apology. And until that time arrives, Newt will blame President Obama. Because if something happened somewhere that a Republican didn't like, the one thing you can be sure of is that it's President Obama's fault.
2:04 PM PT: And Newt's campaign is reiterating that Gingrich is not backing off Bain criticism. Just weirdly blaming it on Obama, I guess.