Romney repudiated Rev. Wright attack after doing it himself in February

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http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-rev-wright-ads-the-wrong-course-for-a-pac-or-a-campaign-20120517,0,1036708.story

By Maeve Reston

May 17, 2012, 2:05 p.m.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mitt Romney said Thursday that he did not approve of a proposal for a racially-tinged ad campaign from an outside group that considered invoking controversial comments of President Obama’s former pastor, telling reporters he wanted to “make it very clear I repudiate that effort.”

“I think it’s the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign,” Romney said, after gathering reporters to address the report in Thursday’s New York Times about the proposed ad campaign put together by several Republican strategists. “I hope that our campaigns can respectively be about the future, and about issues and about a vision for America.” snip

In February, Romney criticized the relationship between Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in a radio interview with Sean Hannity. Hannity had played a clip for Romney in which Obama had said “given the increase in diversity” in America, “the dangers of sectarianism are greater than ever. Whatever we once were we are no longer a Christian nation ...“ Hannity abruptly cut off the clip there, editing the president’s quote in a manner that distorted its meaning, and asked Romney for his thoughts.

“I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like America to be more secular,” Romney told Hannity in that interview. “And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Rev. Wright or him saying that we must be a less Christian nation.”

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And he still stands behind what he said in February:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/i-stand-by-what-i-said-whatever-it-was/2012/05/17/gIQADnyhWU_blog.html

Posted at 04:15 PM ET, 05/17/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Mitt Romney stands by invocation of Rev. Wright
By Greg Sargent

This morning, the Romney campaign repudiated that plan being hatched by GOP operatives to run millions in ads tying Obama to Jeremiah Wright. But as I noted earlier, Romney himself used Wright to attack Obama during an interview with Sean Hannity in February.

Today, Romney was asked about his own previous quote. “I stand by what I said, whatever it was,” Romney replied:

According to a transcript circulated just now by the Obama campaign, this is the exchange:

QUESTION: “When you did an interview with Sean Hannity in February, you said that you believed that Obama is trying to make America a less Christian nation. It was responding to quote that he had just played for you on the radio. Do you stand by that? And do you believe that President Obama’s world view was shaped by Reverend Wright and do you see evidence of that in his policies?”

ROMNEY: “I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was.”

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1. This whole sequence has been very Bushian/Rovian. nt

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2. ‘I Stand By What I Said, Whatever It Was’

Mitt Romney On His Reverend Wright Attack: ‘I Stand By What I Said, Whatever It Was’

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/05/17/486254/mitt-romney-on-wright/