Question Asked and Answered

“CBS’s Pelley Presses Mitt Romney: ‘I Wonder How You Would Explain this Republican Party to Your Father?’”

Some Republicans wonder whether Romney is too moderate for the increasingly conservative party,” CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley refreshingly asked Monday night in veering from the media portrayal of Romney as a far-right ideologue. However, Pelley soon delivered the usual media line that presumed the party is too conservative. “The platform does not allow for exceptions on abortion with regard to the health of the mother or rape or incest,” Pelley told Romney in relaying a Democratic talking point.

Pelley next fretted “this Republican Party that you’re leading is not your father’s Republican Party,” recalling how “he opposed Barry Goldwater in 1964” and was “a passionate advocate for government support for housing for poor people.” Pelley queried: “I wonder how you would explain this Republican Party to your father?”

Of course, George Romney’s Republican Party never nominated him for President and chose the conservative Goldwater as its nominee in 1964 and then selected Richard Nixon, over Romney, in 1968. So wasn’t George Romney the one out of sync with most in the party?

Fortunately, Mitt’s far too careful to say this (something tells me Newt might), but wouldn’t it have been fun to see the reaction on Pelley’s face, if the question were turned back on him by asking: What would William S. Paley think about what’s become of his network, if he knew its current nightly news anchor compares those who disagree with his environmental opinions with Holocaust deniers?