This is a guest post by my good friend, Art Woodstone.
The only literature to be found in my dentist's waiting room includes a copy of the Bible, a four-page exposition detailing the divinity of Christ, three copies of a book by a televangelist and two large-type back issues of Reader's Digest.
I haven't decided yet whether or not she's a good dentist but I thought I had conclusively established that she was a political innocent when, while she had me in the chair with my mouth stuck open, she volunteered her opinion as to why Romney kept shifting his beliefs during the campaign.
"He knows he can do a good job as president but has to lie in order to win," she explained.
I figured it was safest to keep my mouth shut, or in this case, wide open.
It turns out a lot of pros, who could hardly be classified as innocents, share her opinion. Below is the key paragraph from a story in Slate, explaining why newspapers in the past endorsed the Democrat but have now switched their support to the Republican, Romney:
"At least 21 newspapers that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 have endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012. Half of these endorsements are couched in the hope that Romney hornswaggled Republican primary voters and will govern as a moderate. 'Like his primary rivals,' editorialized Florida Today, 'we never bought Romney's newfound conservative purity. During the presidential debates, Romney wisely resumed his identity as a pro-growth pragmatist.' And 'pro-growth,' in the Space Coast region covered by Florida Today means helping out NASA. Romney has pledged to do that without pledging to increase the budget."
That reminds me of the twisted logic Romney's son, Craig, used to justify why Mitt tripped his daughter-in-law in order to win a footrace at a family picnic:
"My dad cheats and that's what we need in the White House."