Mitt Romney
February 23, 2022 — Steven Hayward
That’s not a headline I’d normally expect to write, since Mr. Romney’s irritating preciousness has gone to eleven in recent years, but he deserves props for his statement in the 2012 campaign that “Russia is our most significant enemy.” I think it’s actually China, but the point is, recall how Romney was ridiculed, especially by President Obama, who said, “The 1980s called—they want their foreign policy back.” The media was
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January 14, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Mitt Romney, whose 2012 presidential campaign was set back when Candy Crowley sided with Barack Obama in a debate, has denounced the RNC’s proposal to bar Republican presidential candidates from participating in debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Romney calls the proposal “nuts.” The proposal comes from Romney’s niece, Ronna McDaniel. Romney’s argument is this: The American people want to see candidates for president debating issues of
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September 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Mitt Romney reportedly has agreed with Republican leadership’s decision to move ahead with the process of confirming a Supreme Court nominee. With Romney apparently on board, Lindsey Graham says that leadership has the votes to get a nominee confirmed, assuming no unexpected developments. I think confirmation needs to occur before the election. Afterwards, it will be too easy for certain Senators to defect if Trump loses. And frankly, there would
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February 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
If Mitt Romney voted his conscience yesterday when he favored convicting President Trump for “abuse of power,” then I respect his vote. An impeachment trial isn’t a team sport, or shouldn’t be. But I don’t believe Romney voted his conscience. I’m not sure he has one. Who is Mitt Romney? He was a center-right governor of Massachusetts. Then, he was a hard-right candidate for the Republican nomination. He was “pro-choice”
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February 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times is nothing if not predictable. In the age of Trump, it has become even more so. Having pioneered the “strange new respect” profile genre — i.e., the laudatory profiles of Republicans or conservatives who “get above their raisin'” to join the sanctified line of the Democratic Party — the Times owed Romney, and the Times has now delivered. Before we get to it, however, let us
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February 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
No thanks to Mitt Romney, the Senate has just acquitted President Trump of the first article of impeachment brought against him by the House. Senator Romney announced this afternoon that he would join the Democrats to vote Trump guilty of the first article. He explained in an interview with Chris Wallace on FOX News that in his heart, he knows he’s right. In my heart, I know he’s a fool,
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January 27, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I guess I should say something. For five years my office at AEI was right next to John Bolton. Lately I’ve been having fun with this photo suggesting I can do “hearsay” with the best of Adam Schiff’s witnesses (that is, “making stuff up”). I can’t say I got to know Bolton very well, but as early risers we were often the first people in the office before well before
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October 23, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I have caught up with the unlikely story of Mitt Romney alter ego Pierre Delecto courtesy of the Wall Street Journal story “In Flagrante Delecto: Mitt Romney Is Latest Unmasked Internet Lurker” by Gabriel Rubin and Sarah Needleman. It takes two reporters to perform the search for precedents and capture the deep weirdness here, and yet something is still lacking. Rubin and Needleman fail to identify another United States Senator
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May 19, 2019 — John Hinderaker
“Republican” Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan has called for President Trump’s impeachment on Twitter. His reasons are idiotic: “Impeachment, which is a special form of indictment, does not even require probable cause that a crime (e.g., obstruction of justice) has been committed; it simply requires a finding that an official has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct,” Amash wrote. An interesting paraphrase of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
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January 2, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Steve has already leveled what is probably the most salient criticism of Mitt Romney’s anti-Trump op-ed in the Washington Post. As Steve showed, Romney inadvertently made a case against his own style of Republicanism. I want to focus on this passage in Romney’s piece: Furthermore, I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the
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January 2, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Everyone is buzzing today about Mitt Romney’s op-ed criticizing Trump in the Bezos Bulletin. (This, after seeking Trump’s endorsement for the Senate in Utah, and treating with Trump in 2016 to be secretary of state.) The piece has that “more-in-sorrow-than-anger” tone that Trump’s crude manners are unbecoming of a president, and may degrade our democratic culture. Perhaps this is so. I’m less interested in becoming the 10,000th voice on this
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January 3, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Orrin Hatch’s retirement has created a clear and possibly smooth path to the Senate for Mitt Romney. What kind of a Senator would Romney be? I think he would have been a fine president. Constrained by the GOP’s conservative base, Romney likely would have been a solidly conservative president. His mastery of detail and his administrative ability likely would have made him a successful conservative president. Administrative ability counts
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December 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Charles Cooke has written a devastating take down of Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s ostensibly conservative blogger and reflexive critic of President Trump. Cooke has not hesitated to criticize Trump. Thus, his article isn’t coming from a pro-Trump perspective. Rather, it’s based on dismay over Rubin’s intellectual dishonesty. There is plenty to be dismayed about — more, as we shall see at the end of this post, than even Cooke
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December 12, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Has there ever been a more entertaining transition than Donald Trump’s? I can’t recall one. Nor is it surprising that Trump has entertained us so thoroughly. With the Mitt Romney saga ending (for the moment at least), we are now being treated to an episode featuring Carly Fiorina. The president-elect met with his female campaign-trail nemesis (the really tough one, not Hillary Clinton) at Trump Tower. Reportedly, she has interviewed
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June 11, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday on CNN, Mitt Romney ruled out supporting Donald Trump on grounds of character. Romney called Trump a racist, referring repeatedly to “trickle-down racism,” by which I take it he means racism inspired in future generations by a racist president. When asked at the end of the interview by Wolf Blitzer whether he thinks Trump is a racist, Romney wouldn’t quite say that, but instead responded that Trump’s “comments, time
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March 3, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Mitt Romney delivered an anti-Donald Trump speech in Utah today. It was a very good speech: I don’t agree with everything in it, but his main themes certainly were correct. Along with the speech has come speculation about whether Romney will endorse one candidate or another, or will himself enter the race as an independent candidate. Time will tell; in the meantime, here is Romney’s speech in its entirety: I
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November 23, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
According to most polls, Donald Trump’s support among Republicans is close to 30 percent, and the conventional wisdom, I think, is that he has the solid support of 20 to 25 percent of Republicans. In a field as crowded as the GOP’s is likely to remain for a good while, even 25 percent support can carry a candidate a long way, and Trump’s number surely will increase as candidates drop
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