Charles, you’ve been impeccably civil and have done the best job defending Romney of anybody here. The trouble is the defense you’re making is not the one Romney’s making. I wish you had been one of his advisers, because your theory is far more believable than what Romney came up with.
Unfortunately, I think the reason why your theory never occurred to Romney is because it isn’t the truth. If you were not speaking figuratively you wouldn’t say, when you found out it wasn’t true, “Oh, I was just saying that as a figure of speech. I’m an English major, you see. Look up the word ‘saw’ in the dictionary and you’ll see that my usage is perfectly acceptable.”
No, if this was a memory, something you thought you remembered, you’d say, “That really floors me. I’m certain I remember marching with my dad and Dr. King. Let me look into this, because I know there’s something there.” Then later he could say, “Darn it, I was sure Dr. King had been at that march. It happened 6 days after he was there, but I heard people talk so much about him I was sure he was at the event itself. I didn’t know this then but I thank people for informing me better.”
Romney’s literary defense is only going to sink him further now that the 1978 interview has been uncovered, though probably deservedly since it was as much a lie as his original statement.
Have you asked the Romney people to hire you? They need you.
As I’m not privy to the man’s mind, none of my “defenses” are based on knowing what happened. I can only attempt to interpret the facts that I have before me.
I can understand the “figurative” discussion. If I were trying to make up an excuse, I would have chosen the “I always believed it”.
I remember last year thinking that Allen must really think he never said the “N-word”, because if I was telling him to do what was best for his campaign I would have told him to say he was sorry for using it, instead of denying it. The only reason NOT to do so is if it was actually a lie.
However, in this case I’m not certain WHAT the Romney response is. I’d like to see a direct statement from the campaign rather than an article selectively quoting from it.
I appreciate what you said about me, and wanted to make it clear that I am really just looking for rational explanations of the information in front of me. And in almost every case, no matter what the candidate, if it’s a republican I’m interpreting things in the light most favorable to the republican.
If I wanted, I could tear down every one of our candidates. What would the point be?
BTW, I feel like you do as regards theories, but my interpretation of it is that they are probably telling the truth. Because if he was a liar, he certainly has people smart enough to give him my explanation. He wouldn’t need me to do so.
Therefore, since he isn’t using that explanation, which as you said would probably be more “believable”, it suggests to me that they are telling the truth, rather than lying. A lie would be “better”, and they aren’t using it, so it makes little sense to suggest they chose an unbelievable “lie” instead of a believable one.
BTW, if the complaint here had been that Romney is loose with his words, and spoke without regard to whether the story was actually true or not, I’d probably agree with that. I think he does say things that while literally true, don’t really convey an accurate view.
Like his statement about being a hunter. I guess if I thought more highly of politicians that would bother me more, but there are few politicians I know who don’t fall into rhetorical excesses on a regular basis.
perfect!