He seemed so nice when he was lecturing us all.
A former Mitt Romney aide is pushing back against the David Axelrod story of Mitt's 2012 concession call to the president.
According to Axelrod:
When Obama hung up, he told Axelrod and others who were present that Romney had said: “You really did a great job of getting the vote out in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee.” Axelrod writes that the president added: “In other words, black people. That’s what he thinks this was all about."
Didn't happen, says a furious Garrett Jackson:
"When I read that, I was furious. … It didn’t happen. … I was right next to the Gov. Hell, it was my phone. I was the one who called [Obama aide] Marvin Nicholson [...]"
Did too, says Obama campaign manager
Jim Messina:
Every word of @davidaxelrod mitt e-night call is true. I was standing with axe & POTUS. That's what happened.
Who's lying? Why are they lying? And are any of us obligated to give a damn? All these questions and more will be answered probably never.
The Axelrod/Messina account is very similar to Romney's debriefing call to his fundraisers after his loss, a conference call in which he repeatedly explained that minorities had voted for Obama because the Obama administration was "very generous in what they gave to those groups." That itself bore much similarity to Romney's infamous "47 percent" comments, in which he supposed that percentage of America wasn't going to vote for Mitt Romney no matter what because they were too attached to their lifestyles of mooching off the government. The sentiments attributed to Romney in Axelrod's book, then, were indeed ones that Romney himself seemed to be enamored with at the time. On the other hand, it's difficult to believe even robot Mitt would stream-of-consciousness those things out during a cursory concession call with his victorious opponent.
Perhaps at some point Obama himself will weigh in, but until that time let's all just pause for a moment to reflect on how nice it is that, with Mitt out of the race this time around, precise measurements of how big an asshole the man can be is less a journalistic endeavor and more of a side-hobby for all concerned. It's really quite refreshing.