Mitt Romney's Sex Education Flip
By Nicole Belle Friday Jul 20, 2007 11:00amI watched this ridiculous segment on Hardball Thursday, where guest host Mike Barnicle discusses with Barack Obama campaign advisor, Rev. John Hunter and Mitt Romney advisor Barbara Comstock the strange Romney smear against Obama's statement that children should receive age-appropriate sex education.
Clearly, it's not really that arguable a stance nor particularly controversial, because watch how Comstock twists it to then go into a tangent about teaching five year olds about partial birth abortions, masturbation and homosexuality. Listen to how many Republican buzzwords Comstock can regurgitate in three minutes.
The only problem is, as Barnicle points out, the Romney camp (who actually put up this YouTube clip) has a little flip-flopping problem on this:
Mitt Romney backed age appropriate sex education in 2002.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney attacked Sen. Barack Obama yesterday for purportedly wanting sex education in kindergarten.
It turns out, Romney himself once indicated support for the same sort of sex-ed approach - "age-appropriate" - that Obama backs.
In a Planned Parenthood questionnaire he filled out during his 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney checked ‘yes' to a question asking, "Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?"
UPDATE: You may want to rethink your political slogans, Mitt.
UPDATE #2: Rick Perlstein gives some historical background...
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Silly C&L...
Its not important what HE supports...
Its only important what he DOESN'T support his OPPONENT supporting.
I sure hope that on future AIMS tests, in the essay section, they limit the discourse on 'My First Copulation', to third graders and above.
Just tried to listen to Romney's nutty spokeswoman. Was there a point in her rambling rant? Now I am going to be sick.
Of course her name is Comstock. Is Barbara a descendant of Anthony?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock
This kind of age discrimination in sex education should be unlawful, the pre-schoolers are gonna be pissed.
From my understanding of the Obama stance, is that he has not yet publicly advocated this as a "federal" matter. I saw an interview with Obama where he discussed this as part of his work with the Illinois state legislature. Obama hasn't yet advocated this on a federal level has he? The Romney campaign is turning this from a state issue into a federal one. I agree with the general idea, but don't think that the department of education should be getting involved in it. Can someone clarify?
Romney is such a lying Tool, that he is the perfect nominee for the Repugs. Since the Repugs have built their party around fantasy based rage, reject science as evil, and actually revell in their hypocrisies- Mitt the Mutt will truly represent the reality rejecting stupidity of their base and their criminal media enablers.
Please please please use his full given name when talking about the former MA Governor …
Willard Mitt Romney is his given name…
Like the rodent, he scurries from position to position trying to wend his way through the political maze… but we call it corn (sorry, bad joke)
I think some 'age-appropriate' sex education would be apropos for Mitt himself.
I think it's demeaning to women that he makes his wife change into new costumes each day of the week (schoolgirl, dominatrix, motherly, tomboy, congressional page, etc.) just so he can pretend he's a real Mormon.
He should either marry some more Mormon chicks, or convert to Catholicism and become gay.
Who cares?
Its sad to see that republicans were still somewhat sane as little as five years ago. Now, after buying into the Rove-Cheney-Bush insanity, they have lost all the credibility they ever had and are engaged in a race to the bottom to see who can take the most extreme position regardless of how insane it may be.
This truly is the demise of the Republican party. Many republicans I know are calling themselves Libertarians, even though they don't really know what one is. They just don't want to be republicans any more.
A: He should be proud a movie was named after him.
B: History sucks, doesn't it?
C: What was the name of his makeup person? I need it a lot more than he does. I have a several year head start. I campaigned for his father in Michigan when I was in college.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGuzIgUj6_w
Romney has ZERO chance to become president. He needs to go away. Like all the nutty Mormons.
Is anyone even listening to these stupid right wingers?
Nice. Mitt. You are a ass. And you only confirm it each time you open your mouth.
To Repugs, sex is a dirty thing. It's something you do with your Gay or straight prostitute, or one of your aides. It's chasing around congressional pages for fun. It's asking your wife to go to sex clubs and perform public sex acts for others to watch. Then you go to church and pray to Jeeebus for forgiveness.
For the more enlightened, sex is a very natural part of being human. It is an expression of love between two human beings and can be an important part of a healty happy relationship. Being informed and knowledgeable thus allows us to appreciate and understand our own sexuality and can teach us to develop a healthy self respect and respect for others.
Now, which side are you on.......
Sounds to me that it is the education in sex-education that scares these loudmouths
Check this out...Romney is just too stupid to breath. http://www.tmz.com/2007/07/21/mitt-catches-s-t-over-hillary-bashing-sign/
Say it with me boys and girls "FLIP - FLOP"!
Say it often, say it loudly!
(goose, meet gander)
Rush Limpballs is the poster child for the Republic position. Married numerous times, abusive of women, and caught with a suitcase full of Viagra going to a Carribean island known for its child prostitutes.
OK that didn't work...So I'm too stupid to link. But the TMZ has the story and the photo. What an ass. He really can't think on his feet, can he?
[Ah Strawberry, don't be so hard on yourself. You just left out a space. It's fixed-Sitemonitor]
To our elected Republics, age appropriate sex education is obscene emails sent to 16 year old congressional pages.
that lady just blah blah blah blah.... Let's hope Obama doesn't back down too much. We need to do away with the proven failure of abstinence-only; it doesn't work and we need to evolve in this area. Jeez.
I swear, when she mentioned Colin Powell, the phrase "one of them good ones" was right there on the tip of her tiny little brain.
How old do Republicans think kids need to be before they learn about butt-plugs? When David Vitter teaches his kids about sex, will he tell them where to go and how much to pay?
Right, whatever, Babs, only they're not trying to teach the 5 year olds sex, they're trying to teach them how to respond to inappropriate touching, which is (work with me, I understand this has an unfortunate optics resemblance to sexual harassment and you guys don't think that really exists, but let's give the five year olds the benefit of the doubt and say they didn't ask for it and couldn't have left any time they wanted to and are maybe 30% of the size of the offending party) not sex, it's fucking felony assault of a minor.
So Mitt Romney believes that five year olds shouldn't be told that they should tell an adult if someone touches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable?
Given the kind of campaign he's running, it seems unlikely, but let's give _him_ the benefit of the doubt and say he's sincere and not just misstating Obama's position in a cheap attempt to smear an opponent.
Cui bono?
That would be people who touch five year olds inappropriately.
I think they need to go back and work on this one.
Shared Humanity @ 16:
Sex is only dirty if you do it right!
MS Comstock refers to Bill "abort black babies and lower crime rates" Bennett when she talks about "responsible" abstinance only sex education. "Best Friends" which Comstock touts is headed by Bill Bennett's wife Elayne. I do not know if she is Bennett's first wife, although he was 42 when their first child was born in 1985 and it would be a surprise to me if she were.
So the gambler and his trophy wife are the ones to consult about educating your children about virtue?
I saw this edition of Hardball. Barnicle gave Comstock about 75% of the alloted time. Hunter should have protested or walked out.
You think Mitt posing with hate speech spewer Ann Coulter, and posing with an anonymous hate speech poster maker is going to help him?
Those photos of him posing with right wing haters is going to make some nifty campaign commercials. Especially considering just how sick and tired this country is with right wing extremism and hatred. "Vote for Mitt -- Vote for hate"
Listening to the Reugnants about morality and virtue is like getting tax advice from Al Capone.
LOL. Why is that even an issue? Back home in France i received sex education as a kid (i'm now 41, you do the math), and all for the best. I or others didn't turn into sex beasts or depraved teens, however, we were aware of what was what.
This segment on hardball has shitall to do with the elections. Get down to the real issues, people of the press and tv anchors!
It should be obvious by now that Repub candidates will say anything to win: Massachusetts is in favor of age-appropriate sex education, so he checked that box while he was running for governor, while the U.S. religious-right wingnuts in general object so he unchecked that box while running for president.
Now this is the very worst of flip-flopping - answering personal opinion questions strictly on the basis of what will win you the most support for an upcoming election.
I hope you guys put up that one with Melanie Morgan yesterday on Hardball. Why is this woman allowed on any tv that isn't radical underground or cable access? She is fucking insane.
Wow! If Rev Hunter is the type of person Obama is having advise him he is in big trouble. The guy sat there like a bump on a log and let Romney's person totally dominate the conversation. The average person watching that will come away thinking Obama supports teaching masturbation and homosexuality to kindergardners. That guy should have called her out on every piece of misinformation. Instead he just stared blankly at the camera. You cannot be polite to these people. It won't work. Playing nice will not work in this election. Obama needs to get some real bulldogs in there or else look for him to be swiftboated very soon.
Hardball again? Jeeze, you guys sure like your punishment. Oh, well, sombody's gotta do it. Thanks, C&L.
we have a guy who tied a dog to his car roof for 12 hours telling us how to educate our children. Multiple choice Mitt will do anything to appease the Southern Baptist wing of the gop
It does my heart good to watch the Dems this time around hit back immediately and hit back hard to every misstatement and outright lie against them. Had Kerry done this, instead of taking the high road, he would be in the Oval office today and there would have been no hundreds of thousands of people killed and maimed in Iraq and bin Ladin would have been captured and tried long ago.
Cheap and nasty fearmongering. "Obama wants to teach your pre-schoolers about gays and masturbation". That is really gutter politics.
Mitt's not brainwashed like his father; he's braindrained.
Diogenes @ 38:
Exactly. There is this meme that has been around for decades that if Dem congresscritters just take the high road and ignore attacks, the attacks will go away and the Dems will win for being "above it all".
But it doesn't work that way. Americans in general think that a refusal to answer the issue implies guilt, and taking the high road is confused with stand-offishness/aloofness. And finally refusing to counter is considered weakness and failure to stand for principles.
What an amateur Barnicle is...he seems not able to detect a classic 101 republican trick..'run the table'. In this clip The Romney chick will not shut, says nothing based in fact and controls the dialog. The point is not Romney's flip flopping...he is never going to stop that. The point is Romney is part and parcel a Republican of the current mold.HE LIES!. Obamma never advocated discussions like Comstock suggests..now did he? Did Obamma recommend that we discuss partial birth abortion in the Kindergarten room? NO HE DID NOT..not did he mention anything tat could be credibly be construed as such. Romney's hack, and therefore Romney himself, are just using the same play book as Bush's: "Al Gore said he invented the internet" or "John Kerry bought his medals". The man that told us those lies continued to lie to us "Uniter not a divider", " Compassionate conservative" and later" wanted dead or alive". The point here is that Romney can no more be trusted to do what he says, as he is a proven liar here, as Bush.
Barnicle should, as a seasoned journalist, see the real story in this mess. That being that Romney is willing to delude the American people in order to win and THERE IS NO REASON to think that tendency will stop once he is elected. Romney is simply another Bush.
Richard
Comstock? Where have I heard that name before?
Oh yeah.
Comstock laws
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Comstock Act (ch. 258 17 Stat. 598, enacted March 3, 1873) is a United States federal law that made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. The sale and distribution of obscene materials has been unlawful in most of the American states since the early 1800s, and has been prohibited by federal law since 1873. That is, the federal anti-obscenity laws are still in effect in 2007 and are enforced,[1] though there are extensive debates on what is "obscene." Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states.[2] Collectively, these state and federal restrictions are known as the Comstock laws.
I have a real problem with how this whole issue was framed...
there is no 'sex education' for kindergarten kids... what Obama was suggesting was self-defense for children so that they could know when they were being assaulted... if, perhaps, he had simply incorporated an element of when to use deadly force against an assailant he might have won over the righties...
Barbara Comstock, the spokesperson for the Mitt Romney campaign, was very effective in getting all her talking points out. The other guy representing Obama just sat there. Why is that the norm? Democrats plan to lose again.
FastMovingCloud @ 19:
Democrats don't have the campaign machine to make flip flop stick. Only Republicans can make that work. Gosh, Democrats can't even copy, let alone think of a unique strategy in winning elections!
[...] Clark Link to Article barack obama Mitt Romney’s Sex Education Flip » Posted at Crooks and Liars [...]
I just can't seem to get by the name "Mitt".
"So Mr. Goldberg, how would you like your bagel?'
"I vant it toasted,...'mitt' a bissel cream cheese,.....& 'mitt' a side of lox."
"Hey Heshy,... did ya see in da paper, dis Goyisha putz dats runnin for prezident,......you ain't goin to beleive dis ,....his name is "Mitt",....& guess vaht,....his autobiography is titled "Being With Mitt" ! Oy vey, vaht a putz !!!"
How appropriate that her name is Comstock.
Why would anybody, ever, give credence to anything that Mike Barnicle has to say. Besides they probably aren't his own words anyway.
The hell with sex education for kids. Let them get it the old fashioned way like I did- with a Playboy and two strong hands.
These two gentlemen sat quietly and let that ignorant tool spew her lies and smears for 5 minutes. Why didn't someone step in and tell her to shut the fuck up? When are people who have a brain going to grow a pair and tell these defamatory ideologues to go sell crazy somewhere else? Are Americans so stupid or spineless that they can't say "Excuse me madam but you haven't spoken one word of truth in the lat 5 minutes of hate filled spew so it's time you shut the fuck up." Are they afraid they won't get invited back to do the tweety show? I just don't get it. It's as if you people like to be treated like punk ass bitches.
Perhaps someone can correct me, but doesn't age-appropriate sex education, especially when we are talking about kindergarteners, just refer to teaching kids to be more aware of sexual predators and their advances toward them? Because if it is, I think I can see why the Republicans would be so against it.
Afterall, if the little kids knew enough to accuse those bastards of rape, their entire party would collapse due to scandal after scandal.
stevo @ 35:
I'm sorry, but I have to agree with you. These people are proven to be NASTY.
Mike Barnicle let the repug just run all over him. he gave this bitch and her lies all the time she wanted to smear obama, no equal time to the dem. fuck Mike Barnicle and the repug bitch
Remember President Clinton fired Jocelyn Elders the Surgeon General he appointed because she said masturbation was normal and natural.
So the Republican Talking Point about masturbation is very compelling for a large segment of voters. Voters apparently do not want anyone talking about masturbation and will vote accordingly. Why would Obama even step into this territory during a campaign unless he planned to overcome the challenge in a way that would allow his point to be heard? Democrats keep repeating the same mistakes.
Whenever Barbara Comstock appears as a pundit, you can surely expect her to dump a "Comstock Load (lode)" of bull crap.
wanna know why repugs end up going to hookers?? cuz most of repug women are like comstock
would you want this dried up hag as a wife?
what the eff is wrong about discussing masterbation with kids? even kids as young as 6?
and are repugs still buying this family values bs, after all the shit that the repugs have done or been involved with during the past 6 years?
if i was on the show, i would defend planned parenthood by saying that we need abstenice and contraceptive taught to our children so people like senator dave vitter can have sex using a condom with prositute with out having to worring about catching std et al, i would also talk about how because of contraceptive use, newt mistress who he was banging during the impreachment of bill clinton have pervented her from becoming pregnant, thus outing newt as a hyprocit along with bob livingston, who was also having adultereous affairs.
we need to teach our children about the effective use of contraceptive so that way when republican preaches abstenice only they don't impregnant their mistress when they are having adultereous affairs.
I wish the video was a little longer so that we could see Hunter's response to the Romney propaganda machine.
Obviously, Comstock is not sexually smarter than a five year old. Most five year olds already know about masturbation, something with which Comstock may need to acquaint herself. Her babbling rant betrays how harried she is. Her homely appearance betray that she is getting NONE.
Barbara Comstock: poster child for hysterically unhinged right-wingers. I mean, please, who in their right mind thinks that age-appropriate sex education is going to teach 5 year olds how to masturbate?
The right wing continues to get all of the air time and the sad thing is they never know what the hell to do with it except sound stupid.
Senator Obama is a very smart man and I think he knows and understands many issues not just good for black Americans but all American young people and none of these folks will ever give him the credit for it.
The man is a constitutional scholar and has spent a good part of his life, dedicated to the cause of helping people, even though he most likely would have a hell of a lot more time invested in the US Senate as some are suggesting and that's a fair judgment, because we did the same to President Clinton who is also a very smart man who we had some questions about his experience and he did not fail us. I wish we would have done a lot more thinking when we allowed Bush to get into the white house and that is no joke.
Senator Obama did what most American politicians need to do so that they would be in a much better position to understand the basic needs and concerns of their constituents and I know we can all relate to that with the big mess we have in our country today. They need to not worry so much about their own career advancements and look at the bigger picture of whats really important. These are exactly the kind of people we need in these political positions and that is real.
They think because they continue to spew the names Collen Powell or Condi Rice who appear to be black people in the eye's of America, somehow black people should be satisfied with the kibbles and bits handed to us, complements of this merry team of bigots all over these networks.
It would be like George Bush and Big Dick Cheney, being used as the selected spokes people to speak on behalf of all white America.
If Mr. Rupert Murdock and the FCC gangsters of media would allow people of color (our own choice of spokes people, thank you very much please and we don't care weather white Americana approves of them either), at least but not even equal rights (we do pay these massive cable fees in this country), to have some media space in the national networks division.
We would show the world what we are really about and be in some kind of position to educate our own just as white American has been able to do as our air waves are dominated with these off the wall views, as if we all think and act alike and the worst part is that it is not dominated buy the smart well thinking white Americans, who are also misrepresented. They continue to give us this very sleazy gang of thugs posturing like the idiot's they are and pretending this is what American people ask for.
It's just not real, but I know that these folks need to learn the art of sharing, but that would defeat the whole purpose of being in position to speak on behalf of all America wright or wrong and when you see it on TV, it is what it is and they will not allow any other view that would dispute it. These folks know exactly what they are doing is wrong but they are all working on a higher agenda.
One more time folks, these people do not represent main stream black America
So in your mind teaching “age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?” which Romney agreed to, is the same as teaching KINDERGARTNERS about penis’s, vagina’s, sex, masturbation, and homosexuality?
If so-you’re an idiot.
Not only did Uncle Mitt try to trash B Obama with the subject that would really get his base hot and bothered ~ sex but he seems to also have forgotten that he supported sex education for children earlier in his political hack career.
But then as he recently explained ~ he doesn't read stuff like signs he hold up so he probably didn't read the planned parenthood questions he answered. How dumb does he really thing we are! Guess he's been around his base too long. Do we really need another president who doesn't read???
As to the Hardball program, I did see it and couldn't believe good old Mike Barnacle let Comstock go on and get so off course. Her tirade was disgusting. Obama supports a very sane and wise position ~ giving children the information they need to protect themselves by being able to recognize inappropriate touching. Would any parent not want to protect their child from a predator? Would Mitt???
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