At the 757th Republican debate over the weekend, Newt Gingrich zinged Mitt Romney for attempting to portray his decision to forego a reelection race in Massachusetts as reluctance to become a lifetime politician. “Can we drop a bit of the pious baloney?” Gingrich taunted, observing that Romney’s poll numbers were dropping in 2006, and that he was eyeing a presidential run (which he did indeed make in 2008).
True enough. Romney’s explanation was transparently self-serving and contrived. That said, Romney cannot hope to compete in the phoniness league Newt Gingrich belongs to. At that level of play, candidates dare to suggest that they take huge retainers from Freddie Mac in order to offer advice “as a historian,” and commit serial adultery because “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country . . . I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
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