Mitt losing the media (update)

Update: A reader points out the date of this: Feb. 28, 2005. This is after Romney’s supposed conversion. Romney now says that he was pro-life when he gave this interview. Does this sound pro-life:

I’m personally pro-life but I won’t change the laws, you could describe that as – well I don’t think you can describe it in one hyphenated word.

Mitt Romney claims to defy description. I’m believing that.

After an overnight flight to Brussels, where I will be until Sunday, I sat down to read the DC news. And one of the first things that pops up is this review of Mitt Romney by Ruth Marcus:

I reprint so much of Romney’s answer (you can read or listen to the full exchange online) because its baroque circumlocutions seemed to say so much about him. It was hard to know what Romney actually thought about abortion rights other than that this was a political minefield it was best to avoid stepping into for as long as possible.

But it was also hard to see how a man with deeply held convictions on abortion rights — either for or against — could take a position so calibrated and inconclusive. Listening to Romney that day was like watching a chameleon in the fleeting moment that its color changes to suit its environment. Indeed, several months later, after vetoing a bill to expand access to emergency contraception, Romney wrote in the Boston Globe about how his views on the subject had "evolved and deepened."

I am struck by the language of this. The media respects and perhaps even fears (feared?) George Bush. Remember all the stories, now seemingly false, about the White House run with military style?

The media doesn’t respect Mitt Romney. They think he is phony. They think he is lying. In the end, you can defeat a media that opposes you. But can you lose a media that dismisses you as merely a fraud?