RUSH: Laurie in Danbury, Connecticut, welcome, great to have you on the EIB Network as we head to the phones. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Good, thank you.
CALLER: First of all, I just want to tell you that you affect my life in so many ways, I can’t tell you.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: I listen to everything you say, and I believe you.
RUSH: Well, sometimes I’m kidding. Not very many, but —
CALLER: I know when you’re kidding —
RUSH: Okay, good.
CALLER: — but I also know when you’re telling the truth.
RUSH: Awesome. Thank you very much.
CALLER: I just have a couple of points to make, if I may.
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: Sarah Palin was totally awesome at the CPAC. I’ve never heard a better speech.
RUSH: We got the sound bites coming up.
CALLER: Okay. I also know that I consider Romney to be the Republican version of Obama. He will say, he will do absolutely anything, to get elected. To me, he looks like he’s totally desperate. I think he’s mean, he’s nasty, and he’s not a conservative by my definition or by yours. I will never vote for him.
RUSH: I got a piece here, I mentioned Peter Robinson of Ricochet. He has a post at Ricochet: “A Sentence I Wish I Hadn’t Read — On the front page of the New York Times this morning, a long story on Mitt Romney’s positions on abortion. In both his unsuccessful 1994 senate race and his successful 2002 gubernatorial race, the Times notes, Romney campaigned as unambiguously pro-choice. Then? ‘By 2005, with Mr. Romney eyeing a possible presidential bid, he began to distance himself from his abortion rights platform.’ In an article that June in National Review, Romney stated ‘[m]y political philosophy is pro-life.’
“That same article quoted his top strategist at the time, Mike Murphy, as saying Mr. Romney had been ‘a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.'” That he’s always been pro-life. He just faked being pro-choice once he was in Massachusetts. “‘Faking it?’ … Mike was suggesting that Romney intentionally misled the people of Massachusetts.” His own guy made the point that you’re making, Laurie.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I had a caller at the end of the previous hour who basically said that she thinks Romney fakes it, whatever he has to say, whatever. Clearly not a Romney supporter. And I had to run through something pretty quickly here. I’ll have to spend a little bit more time with it, because it dovetails with what she said. Peter Robinson at Ricochet.com had a little post.
“On the front page of the New York Times this morning, a long story on Mitt Romney’s positions on abortion. In both his unsuccessful 1994 Senate race and his successful 2002 gubernatorial race, the Times notes, Romney campaigned as unambiguously pro-choice. Then? ‘By 2005, with Mr. Romney eyeing a possible presidential bid, he began to distance himself from his abortion rights platform.’ In an article that June in National Review, Romney stated ‘[m]y political philosophy is pro-life.'” Now, Mr. Robinson says there’s a sentence in this story that he wishes he hadn’t read. “Which brings us to the sentence that made me wince: That same article,” the June 2005 National Review in which Romney said, “My political philosophy’s pro-life.”
“That same article quoted his top strategist at the time, Mike Murphy, as saying Mr. Romney had been ‘a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.'” Now, Mr. Robinson writes, “‘Faking it?’ As best I can tell, there really is no other way of construing this. Mike was suggesting that Romney intentionally misled the people of Massachusetts.” So I just wanted to mention that ’cause it dovetailed with her call, and this is one of his own people saying essentially that Romney told the people of Massachusetts what he thought they needed to hear in order to win an election there. And, in fact, we’ve heard much the same thing said when defending Romneycare comes up. “Well, remember now, I was a governor of big blue state.”
Look, folks, as you know, I’ve not endorsed anybody, and I’ve not chosen anybody. I’ve not expressed a preference here. This is a microcosm of why. I don’t want to endorse early, have stuff come up that you can’t defend or you have to make some flimsy excuse for. So as far as I’m concerned it’s just an information item, and the only reason I’m even spending any time on it is because Romney’s own consultant is the author of the sentence. The 2005 National Review article quoted Mike Murphy, top strategerist at the time, saying Romney had been “a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.” That’s in quotes. A pro-life Mormon faked it as a pro-choice friendly.
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