Pierce: Mitt Romney Voted to Impeach the President He Now Will Allow to Shape the Supreme Court for
Mitt Romney Voted to Impeach the President He Now Will Allow to Shape the Supreme Court for Decades
Here's the latest episode of that long-running serial drama, As The Romney Spins.
By Charles P. Pierce
Sep 22, 2020
...That a career chameleon like Willard Romney can use the word "immutable" without bursting immediately into a pillar of flame is proof enough that the Angel Moroni still swings a heavy bat in the Beyond. There has been no politician in my experience who better defined "mutable" than this guy.
I was there when he ran as a moderately pro-choice, moderately pro-LGBTQ-rights Republican against Ted Kennedy. I was there when he got elected governor as roughly the same breed of cat. I was there when he helped bring a flawed, but unquestionably groundbreaking healthcare reform into being. I was there when that helped bury him in 2008. (It also didn't help that the more they saw him, the less people liked him. There was actual polling data to this effect.) And I was there in 2012, when he ran as an anti-immigrant firebrand while running away from the signature achievement of his political career. And I have watched him relentlessly flirt with his facsimile of a conscience during the entire tenure of El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago at the top of the news. Remember that scalding speech he gave during the campaign? Remember how he voted to impeach the president* he now plans to allow to define the Supreme Court for the next three decades?
He's...just...so...Willard.
And look at that statement. He's not committing to vote for the nominee. (Presumably, nominating Ivanka or the reanimated corpse of Roger Taney would give Romney pause.) He's saying he will "consider" the president*'s nominee. Sure, he joins in the general tap-dance around sincerity concerning what happened to Merrick Garland, but he's doing so in a fashion through which he can have that cake and eat it too. He will vote "based on their qualifications." To continue with our pastry theme, there's so much fudge in that statement that even McConnell and the folks at Camp Runamuck must still be just a little bit nervous about relying on Romney's support. All you can count on with Willard is that he is so Willard. 'Twas ever thus.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34110878/mitt-romney-trump-supreme-court-nomination/
