Presidential candidate and former Mass. gov. Mitt Romney says he’s being unfairly maligned as a “flip-flopper” on abortion when in reality he’s just had a conversion.
On Monday night, Romney offered another defense, saying he is being unduly criticized for shifting from supporting abortion rights to opposing them.
The Republican presidential contender said he wouldn’t endure such questions had he went [sic] the other way, from opposing abortion rights to favoring them.
“What I find interesting is, had I been pro-life and then changed to pro-choice, no one would ask the question,” the former Massachusetts governor said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes.” “But if you go the other direction, as I have and as Ronald Reagan did and (former Illinois Rep.) Henry Hyde and (former President) George Herbert Walker Bush, it’s like the media can’t get enough of it: ‘Oh, well, why did you change?’”
While it’s undoubtedly true that if Romney switched from pro-life to pro-abortion the media would say nothing, certainly interested voters might have something to say, and really aren’t those the voices he should care about?
As it is, he has done nothing to convince that his conversion on this issue is anything other than political convenience, since it didn’t come until after it couldn’t hurt his electoral chances in so solidly pro-abortion Massachusetts but only once he was entering into the Republic primaries where the party faithful are much more solidly pro-life.
While Romney’s conversion may indeed be sincere, the office of president is much too important to hand it over to someone we can’t trust. Like in the old days of the Cold War, we might welcome a Soviet spy who defected, but it doesn’t mean we’re just going to send him down to the CIA to start running operations.
Mr. Romney, that trust has to be earned first.
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