Romney on Meet the Press

The much anticipated interview of Mitt Romney by Tim Russert went exceedingly well for the Governor.  Despite the relentless -- one might even say pathological -- effort by Russert to portray Romney as a flip-flopper, the Governor once again demonstrated that he has the poise, credibility and power of articulation to comport himself with aplomb under withering questions and criticisms.

I thought the first part of the interview, with Russert really pressing the Mormon issue, was uncomfortable because it was a bit on the unseemly side.  Mitt Romney's Mormonism is deserving of no additional scrutiny or special treatment that any other candidate's faith or denomination.   I don't know how many times Mitt Romney has to explain that he's running for president and not pastor.  The fixation of the MSM on the subject, despite the frequency with which Romney has explained how he views the relationship between faith and politics, has become old and tired.  The subliminal message such harping brings is that people need to be concerned about voting for Romney because his Mormonism makes him some kind of a wildcard who might do something to undermine the Constitution once in office.

I thought the Governor offered very credible and well-thought out responses to Russert's attempt to create a "gotcha" moment on any number of issues like abortion, gun control, immigration and taxes.  At one point I perceived that Russert had grown frustrated with Romney's ability to avoid falling into a rhetorical trap.  At that point, instead of allowing his questioning to make his point indirectly, Russert had to actually come out and assert that he was trying to show a pattern of position changes.  Through a combination of rejecting Russert's premises and calling Russert out for not showing some clips and articles in the appropriate context, Romney made a statement to the GOP electorate that he wouldn't be pushed around or fall victim to a left-of-center media biased against his candidacy.

I thought a highlight of the interview was when Russert took a Romney quote from an article where Romney was outlining the various proposed solutions for illegal immigration that were considered "reasonable."  Russert accused the Governor of supporting the McCain amnesty for illegal aliens.  Romney quickly challenged Russert on the grounds that he didn't also read the part where Romney clearly stated that he didn't, at the time of the interview, support any of the proposals, including amnesty, and would be coming out with his own immigration plan. 

Just as an aside, Russert's use of a pair of flip-flops as a prop during the interview was both cheap and unnecessary.  Can you imagine Russert interviewing Hillary Clinton and pulling out a bunch of file folders when asking her about the "missing" Rose Law firm documents that turned up at the White House?

This was very much an interview predicated on trying to undermine the Governor.  Given that the interview lasted an hour, Russert didn't bother to ask the Governor to fully explain how he would fight Islamo-Fascism, formulate tax policy, see the Iraq War through to victory, deal with the sub-prime loan crisis, confront Iran or work with Pakistan.  Instead, Meet the Press viewers got to see an hour of Russert trying to trip Romney up and feed the meme that there should be concerns about his Mormonism.  Through his sophisticated responses and extraordinarily detailed knowledge of the intricacies of policy -- his impressive discussion of stem cell research being a prime example -- Romney once again proved he's probably the best candidate to joust with a hostile media.  Russert came across as the smart-aleck student trying to show off for the class while Romney came across as the teacher who would have none of it.

The full interview can be viewed here. 

Comments

[Jeff Wells]

I hope the public begins to see through the agenda of the liberal press and see the substance of some of the Republican candidates, in particular Romney. He brings a fresh business perspective to the opportunities to create real valid change in Washington. I would love to see government managed as a business instead of a golden parachute. In regard to his religion, the more people hound on him about it the more clear it is going to become that the questionaires are misinformed, calculating and really not interested in him as much as they are in trying to create the news themselves.

[Patrick Jackson]

Almost every episode of Meet the Press is a hour of "gotcha" moments, with Russert bringing up past quotes and videos of the interviewee in order to make them explain inconsistencies. There's nothing "pathological" about that; he does it with candidates of every ideological stripe. That's what makes the show so good.

I agree that Romney handled himself well in the interview, but I found his answers about the Mormon church's past position on race to be evasive. I don't think Romney is being disingenuous when he says that he's always stood for civil rights, or that he wept when he heard over the radio that the Church was integrating. What I find troubling is his refusal to condemn his Church's pre-1978 position on the place of blacks in the church. I can't think of an evangelical Christian who wouldn't condemn the past racist doctrines or actions of church leaders in his denomination. The problem to me seems to be that Romney feels like he can't condemn, and that makes me think that the Mormon church is scarily authoritarian. The Mormon church didn't admit it was wrong in the past, it said it was acting in response to "new revelation." Did Romney feel constrained to adopt his Church's views on religion until the "new revelation" came? This is the part of the interview I'm talking about:

and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.

MR. RUSSERT: But it was wrong for your faith to exclude it for as long as it did.

GOV. ROMNEY: I've told you exactly where I stand. My view is that there--there's, there's no discrimination in the eyes of God, and I could not have been more pleased than to see the change that occurred.

[Scottish Right Joe]

Thanks for your comment!

My take on his "evasiveness" is a bit different. I think it had less to do with fearing the structure of his church and more to do with not providing the media with a salacious headline they would love to run with. If Romney came out and criticized the LDS church over their pre-1978 position on race, the headlines would have screamed something along the lines of "Romney Distances Himself From Racism in Mormon Church," or "Romney Condemns Church Teaching on Race."

Governor Romney, like most people of faith, is proud of his faith even if he may not agree with every point of doctrine. He shouldn't have to criticize his church on a controversial point of doctrine since rejected anymore than a Roman Catholic should apologize for the Spanish Inquisition, a Christian for the crusades, a German citizen for the Holocaust or an American caucasion on behalf of slavery.

I suppose the broader point is that the views of his church, or anyone's church, should be off-limits. In Governor Romney's case, he offered his personal view of race and that should really be all that matters. I think he was right not to open the door to a candidate having to criticize their church for what the church may or may not have believed or done or not done in it's history.