A lot of people don’t think Romney’s repeated tall tales are a big deal — in my view that’s just another indication of how split our party has become.
Romney’s false claim that he was a “lifelong hunter” is the thing that first soured me on him a bit. Since then there have been more tall tales and considerably more souring (there are many examples — most recently, with his false claim that he had the support of the NRA when he ran for governor).
I absolutely have had it with the constant need to parse Romney’s seemingly simplest words — e.g., “support,” “saw,” “with” “lifelong.”
I remember being especially disturbed with Clinton, Gore and Kerry that they lied about such stupid things that were so easily proved untrue. It shows either a pathological inability to stick to the plain truth, or a pathological disdain for the intelligence of the American people. I now have exactly the same sense about Romney.
Under no circumstances am I willing to spend the next year defending Romney’s revolving claims and clarifications, when I spent the last four elections denouncing similar behavior from Kerry, Gore, and the ‘toons. If he is the GOP nominee and my dem friends/acquaintances want to discuss his penchant for spinning fables, my attitude will be “don’t look at me — I didn’t vote for him.”
The GOP is going to look ridiculous and lose a lot of credibility if we put forth Romney after slamming the past three donk candidates for the same repeated verbal gymnastics.
This is not a slam against Romney’s supporters — we all have the right to judge a candidate on whatever criteria we like. But this is my final straw — I personally want nothing to do with this guy.
I think Romney is not only a congenital liar, but a poor one. A good liar keeps it simple, but Romney seems to have this compelling need to over-embellish and add unnecessary detail that makes it easier to expose the lie.
In this latest incident, he could have simply said that he remembered seeing his father march for civil rights in the 60's. But he had to go and embellish it to bring Martin Luther King's name into it, claiming that he saw something he didn't. Now he and his campaign are stuck trying to spin away a false detail that was completely unnecessary for him to have added in the first place.
Mind you, I'd be cutting him more slack if this was an off-the-cuff statement he made. But it wasn't -- it was planned and put into a long-drafted playing of the victim card speech.