Dead Man Talking

NBC aired a great new comedy special this morning--Tim Russert interviewing Mitt Romney on Meet the Press.

This guy has no shot. He makes John Kerry look resolute. Romney just got called out on issue after issue where he has changed. No new real info, but with a full hour with the guy, Russert had time to show extensive clips, read extensively from articles, let Romney respond and follow-up when the response didn't make sense. And boy, they didn't. While it's exasperating to me, I think it must be as, or even more, exasperating for a conservative Republican. Romney's got to hope that everyone's cable was out in Iowa and New Hampshire this morning.

Russert started off on the now infamous religion speech Romney gave and zeroed in on the statement in the speech "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." They didn't touch on the second part of that statement, but here was the gist of the interview. Romney: that was in the context of the founders, and what I was doing was paraphrasing John Adams that freedom requires morality. Russert: Can an atheist be moral? Romney: Of course. Russert: So if you were evaluating a Supreme Court or Cabinet appointee who also happened to be an atheist, you would still consider him or her? Romney: Of course, you would evaluate the skills and abilities of the person. Russert: No litmus test. Romney: No. Russert: Then what does the statement in the speech mean that 'Freedom requires religion'? Romney: [Incomprehensible] [Black is black and white is white, and that's it. Doesn't gray exist? Yes, of course. Then how does that square with what you just said about black and white? I've already told you Tim--black is back and white is white, and that's it.]

And then it got worse as they marched through everything else.