Mitt Romney showed up on Meet the Press for the full hour, and the blogosphere focused on the former Massachusetts governor’s mistaken claim that he was endorsed by the NRA in 2002. What was more interesting to me, however, was the fact that the following quote contains the entirety of the discussion on Iraq, totaling about two minutes of screen time:
“If you’re, if you’re, if you’re suggesting that, that, that it’s equivalent to say that we made a number of errors and that we have a very difficult situation in Iraq, that’s the same as saying the president is arrogant and bunker mentality, that’s, that’s where he went over the line. I’ve been saying for months, and I think all the Republican candidates, in fact, have been saying for months, if not years, that, that following the collapse of Saddam Hussein our policy was, was unprepared, unplanned, understaffed, undermanaged, that we made a number of errors and that much of the difficulty we face today is due to those errors. But it’s very different to point out the mistakes that have been made–and the president’s pointed out the mistakes as well–and then to say that the Bush administration, our president, is arrogant with a bunker mentality, that’s a completely different statement for which Mike Huckabee owes the president an apology.”
The lack of discussion about Iraq suggests that the situation in-country is getting better and the issue is losing salience with the media–surely a good thing for the GOP, regardless of whoever ends up being the nominee. On Face the Nation, Fred Thompson showed up and took some shots at Mike Huckabee:
“If you look at his policies, ‘liberal’ is the only word that comes to mind. When he was governor, I mean, the things that he said, things that he did, I mean, he was very resistant to any kind of effort to stop illegal immigration, any kind of effort to make sure that those who came in illegally were not on the–on the public roles, you might say, in terms of social services. Cato Institute rated him one of the worst governors in terms of taxes and tax increases. He wanted to lift the embargo on Castro. Now he wants to close Guantanamo because he thinks it will curry some favor with other nations. It’s basically a pretty social liberal policy that he has followed for several years and hasn’t made any bones about it up until recently. And now I understand that he’s got a tough immigration ad going on, but it–but it’s not consistent with his record.”
Bill Kristol continued to hammer Hillary Clinton for her performance at the last Democratic debate:
“But it does come down to the candidate, and I do think that the moment you just showed was very revealing. Why was Hillary Clinton laughing, or if I might say, cackling, when this perfectly innocuous, silly question is asked of Obama. … As if everyone’s foreign policy advisors at this stage on the Democratic side hadn’t served in the Clinton administration somewhere. But anyway, it’s an innocuous question, Obama’s about to answer it, and suddenly there’s this kind of high pitched laugh and then: ‘I want to hear this.’ Isn’t that revealing? What does that mean? Why does she want to hear it? She thought this was some kind of gotcha moment where Obama would have trouble with the answer, and I think he showed something with his quick comeback. Not just quickness, but toughness.”
The biggest non-political news of the week was sports-related. This Week‘s George Will talked about the Mitchell Report, Major League Baseball’s examination of the role steroids have played in the game:
“George Mitchell threw a lot of stuff in here, and some of it–these are varying degrees of accusations. Andy Pettitte of the Yankees yesterday came out and said I used Human Growth Hormone for two days because I had a sore elbow. It supposedly has healing properties. … In any case, I don’t see the moral difference between that and taking a cortisone shot as a one time healing episode as opposed to a regimen to give you an unnatural advantage.”
