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In his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night, President Obama laid the gauntlet at Mitt Romney's feet on his warmongering. He straight out challenged Romney to say what he thinks with regard to how Iran should be handled. Responding to a question about his foreign policy, President Obama said "If Governor Romney is suggesting we should start another war, he should say so."
Romney's response to that was a lot of weird, ranty, unintelligible word salad. Asked about it on the campaign plane, Romney said "I'm not going to try to fool people into thinking he believes things he doesn't. He's trying to fool people into thinking that I think things that I don't." There's a non-denial denial for you right there.
I'm not sure what Romney was trying to say there, but everything he's said to criticize President Obama's foreign policy would suggest he does indeed believe we should start another war, this time with Iran in defense of Israel. It's a thread that runs through everything he says about having a "strong military" to the old "leading from behind" trope that disparages, but says nothing substantive.
From Romney's long-standing friendship with war hawk Netanyahu to his neocon foreign policy team, it's clear Mitt Romney would have absolutely no problem serving keepers like Sheldon Adelson by stepping up pressure against Iran with military force. None whatsoever. No one has to "trick" anyone into "thinking things [Romney] doesn't." The handwriting is all over the wall on that.
Even more interesting than Romney's word salad denial on war, however, is the second segment of this report where Mitt Romney dismisses his "47 percent" remarks by saying "that's not the campaign, that was me!"
Step back and let that sink in for a minute. In that one admission, Mitt Romney owned his remarks as his own, owned the underlying message about writing off half the country, and then distanced the "campaign" from them, expecting that viewers would somehow separate the REAL Romney from his "campaign."
Isn't the campaign about electing Romney? It's not some unrelated monolith out there just rolling around the country for the hell of it. It is an organization of people dedicated to electing Mitt Romney the next president of the United States. And if they succeed, that guy -- that "me" -- in those videos will be forming tax policy, foreign policy, and social policy for this nation.
Mitt Romney somehow thinks the debates will redeem him. Good luck with that. Will the real Romney be speaking or the mythical beast known as Campaign?
