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Friday, January 27, 2012

Mitt Romney LDS yes LSD no



Wolf Blitzer asking Romney to repeat the charge.

“I haven’t seen the ad, so I’m sorry, I don’t get to see all the TV ads,” Romney said. “Did he say that?”

The fact that Gingrich did say something like that is a bit awkward for Gingrich, and has been for quite a while. But there was plenty of awkward to go around: Turns out the ad Romney said he’s never heard of is running on the radio from his campaign — and Romney’s voice, in Spanish, is on the end saying he approved it.

This Time Mitt Romney said something which is true (I think I will devote this blog to reporting all of his non-lies -- plus other things as I want to blog freequently).

It depends on what the definition of "seen" is. He has heard the ad, but sticking to LDS and not LSD he hasn't seen it man. The problem is that, like Bill Clinton, he is too clever by half. His denial is technically true, but gives the impression of very deliberately misleading. It adds the insult of outsmarting Wolf to the injury of trying to mislead us.

In fact, his campaign's defense is that he made an honest mistake (better than a much too clever dodge).

“We’ve had about 85 web videos, radio ads, and TV spots that have been up and running which he has reviewed and approved,” Fehrnstrom told TPM. “He doesn’t recall every single one of them,

So Romney doesn't remember the claims he has made in public. According to Fehnstrom he has reckless disregard for the truth, not the sort of character flaw which would lead him to deny that his campaign made a claim in a TV ad without mentioning that it made the claim (which is substantially true) in a radio ad.

Fehrnstrom also mentions Politifact (see post below)

"Politifact looked at that ad, they looked at that specific claim, and they rated it mostly true.”" Here I agree with Politifact. Gingrich contrasted English with an un named "language of the Ghetto". Everyone infers that this other language is Spanish, but he didn't use the word. So the Romney campaign's claim is "mostly true" rather than just plain true, because they paraphrased (accurately I'm sure) rather than translating word for word.

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