Mitt Believes This. No, This. No,


We all now that whatever the issue, Mitt Romney has an opinion you will agree with.   If not this one, be patient, he'll give you what you want to hear.     Even better, he sometimes expresses two different opinions back-to-back.  

On the candidate's website, we read "As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito."  The other day, he  told CBS reporter Jan Crawford

Well, I certainly wouldn’t nominate someone who I knew was gonna come out with a decision I violently disagreed with — or vehemently, rather, disagreed with.     And he reached a conclusion I think that was not accurate and not an appropriate conclusion. But that being said, he’s a very bright person and I’d look for individuals that have intelligence and believe in following the Constitution.

Mitt wouldn't appoint someone he disagrees with, such as Roberts.   But he would appoint someone intelligent, and Roberts is very bright.     He wouldn't appoint someone like Roberts.   Or he would.

Aren't we glad he cleared that up?   The inconsistency is consistent with what the former governor maintained Wednesday about the health insurance mandate.    He (in)famously told CBS

Well, the Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it's a tax. They decided it was constitutional. So it is a tax and it's constitutional. That's the final word. That's what it is. ...

I said that I agreed with the dissent, and the dissent made it very clear that they felt it [the health care law] was unconstitutional. But the dissent lost. It's in the minority. And so now the Supreme Court has spoken.

"There's no way around that. You can try and say you wished they would have decided in a different way, but they didn't. They concluded it was a tax. That's what it is.

This was widely reported as an assertion by Romney that the mandate was a tax rather than a fine.   But in the opinion of Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy (authored, reportedly, by none of them), "There is simply no way ... to escape what Congress enacted: a mandate that individuals maintain minimum essential coverage, enforced by a penalty."    Those Justices, whose dissent Romney says he agreed with, argued the mandate is a penalty, rather than a tax.     Romney then says that the mandate is a tax because the Court concluded "it was a tax.   That's what it is."     Mark Memmott of PBS thus concludes

the bottom line from Romney's comments to CBS is that he's saying the mandate is a tax because the majority of justices on the Supreme Court say so. He didn't specifically say that he agrees with them. In fact, he said he agrees with the justices who believe otherwise and that the law is unconstitutional.

Wait a minute and Mitt Romney will give you the opposite opinion.   No- wait until the next sentence.



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