The Romney Revival Project Who’s buying the latest repositioning from Utah’s new senator? By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-romney-revival-project-11546463147
Just before taking his seat as Utah’s newest U.S. Senator, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is condemning the character of President Donald Trump. But given Mr. Romney’s history, some members of the press corps are withholding the strange new respect customarily accorded to Republicans who criticize the President.
Mr. Romney states in an op-ed for the Washington Post that Mr. Trump “has not risen to the mantle of the office.” Mr. Romney presents himself as being moved by recent events to make his latest declaration of principle. Writes Mr. Romney:
The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.
Certainly a duly-elected President has the right to choose his subordinates. And if Mr. Romney was truly moved to condemn an “abandonment of allies,” wouldn’t he at least go to the trouble of naming them and spending at least a portion of the op-ed describing the details of their predicament? From the context it seems likely he was referring to the Kurds or others fighting against remaining ISIS forces in Syria, but the rest of the op-ed addresses various threats around the world and what Mr. Romney sees as a fraying of alliances with friends in Europe and Asia.
It’s also hard to believe that Mr. Romney is suddenly and deeply offended by Mr. Trump’s recent comment that Americans are no longer “suckers.” For better or worse, the idea that the U.S. government has been shouldering too much of the world’s defense burden has been a central part of the Trump message for years. It’s especially hard to believe that Utah’s newest senator thinks this insult is beyond the pale given that in 2016 Mr. Romney said that candidate Donald Trump was “playing the members of the American public for suckers.” Will Mr. Romney now apologize to the roughly 63 million Americans who voted for the Republican candidate in the last presidential election?
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post is among the media folk who aren’t sure they should take the latest Romney declaration at face value. Mr. Blake writes in the Post:
Romney criticized Trump in more severe terms than just about anybody in 2016, even after Trump was the de facto GOP nominee. But he’s also been happy to play ball and accept his help. As the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, he flew out to accept an endorsement from Trump, then in the throes of birtherism. After Trump was elected president, Romney interviewed to be Trump’s secretary of state.
When Romney decided to run for Senate, he accepted Trump’s endorsement again and backed off his previous criticisms of the leader. At a debate three months ago, Romney was asked three times whether he still thought Trump was a fraud and a phony. “I’m going to talk about the future,” he responded.
His op-ed seems, in part, to be an effort to explain his many about-faces. CONTINUE AT SITE
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