Gregg Jackson Recounts Mitt Romney’s History. Romney Supporters Owe Us a Complete Rebuttal.

Mitt Romney, his campaign, chief apologists Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett (now at the Weekly Standard; his latest is here), and “name” endorsers like Paul Weyrich owe us definitive rebuttals of the claims made by Gregg Jackson (with assistance from Paul Dinger) in his Townhall column last Friday (”Romney Secrets the Media Are Hiding from You”).

I’ve looked around for a rebuttal, and haven’t found one.

(The column brought to my attention later this morning in the Update below isn’t even in the neighborhood of being a rebuttal.)

I believe that it’s because they don’t have a rebuttal.

I interpret their collective silence of roughly 72 hours — “an eternity in the blogosphere,” as Patterico and others have noted, and as Hugh Hewitt of all people surely knows — as acknowledgment that Jackson, who lives in Massachusetts and has directly experienced Mitt Romney’s handiwork, is right.

Until someone among the parties I’ve just named comes up with a point-by-point, substantive response that addresses each and every one of the items noted below, Jackson’s claims will stand around here, and will ring true with most fair-minded people who read his column.

The only attempt I see to recognize and rebut Mr. Jackson predates his latest column. It is this post by John Mark Reynolds “responding” to Jackson’s week-earlier article (”Is This the End of Evangelism in America?”) criticizing one Wayne Grudem. Mr. Grudem, apparently a prominent theologian described as “a Research Professor of Bible and Theology at the Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, AZ,” not only declared his personal support of Mr. Romney, but argued in mid-October that “Evangelicals Should Support Mitt Romney.”

I’m not a theologian, and I’m not going to pretend to play one in the blogosphere. That said, I believe I can recognize when someone is twisting himself into pretzels constructing a defense, or a critique. On that point, let’s just say that if there was a competition to find the Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut, respectively, of punditry, I believe that Wayne Grudem and John Mark Reynolds would be the odds-on favorites to win. Reynolds adds mountains of ugly icing to his tasteless cake by exaggerating Jackson’s positions, engaging in immature name-calling, and seeing a whole host of things in Gregg’s November 2 column that simply aren’t there.

But let’s get back to more familiar ground, namely Romney’s pronouncements during successful and unsuccessful political campaigns, and his performance as governor of Massachusetts.

Here where gold-medal wordsmithing gymnast Grudem stands:

….. Romney’s positions on social, economic, and international issues are all soundly conservative. On major issues such as protection of the unborn, a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, strong national defense and victory against radical Islamic terrorists, securing our border, a signed pledge of no tax increases, promoting school choice, and appointment of Supreme Court justices who will interpret law, not make new law, Romney holds solidly conservative positions. His positions are the ones the majority of evangelicals have supported in the past.

Some people object that Romney has “flip-flopped” on some of these positions. I think that accusation is exaggerated. He hasn’t flip-flopped back and forth, he has simply become more consistently conservative. I think that’s a good thing in a political and media climate that is more and more liberal.

Silver medalist Reynolds essentially called out Jackson a week ago:

Mr. Jackson attacks Mr. Romney’s time as governor without giving any evidence for it beyond slogans.

Of course, that wasn’t the purpose of Jackson’s November 2 evangelically-based column.

But given Reynolds’ challenge, all I can say now is: Be careful what you wish for, John Mark.

Jackson, who is a best-selling author, co-blogger and co-host at Pundit Review Radio (on which yours truly has appeared twice), and now has his own web site, backed up the evidence truck on Friday. What spilled forth is compelling and convincing.

I’ll first list the Jackson excerpts that respond directly to Grudem’s pro-Romney arguments (bolds are mine throughout the remainder of this post):

(protection of the unborn)
- “He was pro-choice when he was elected and pro-abortion when he left the governor’s office.”
- “Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan ….. covers abortion. What kind of Pro-lifer thinks abortion should be part of his health care plan? Romney signed this bill into law after he claims he had a discussion with an anonymous Harvard doctor wherein he discovered abortion was morally wrong.”
- “Unlike Reagan who had a true turnaround on abortion, Romney has ping-ponged back and forth on this issue for years.”
- “….. running for governor in Massachusetts, Romney was definitely Pro-choice and promised he would not touch any abortion law. During a candidate’s debate, he was so firmly Pro-choice, he renounced an endorsement from Massachusetts’ Citizens for Life.”

(traditional marriage)
- “When the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the citizens of the Commonwealth, Romney could have exercised a “bill of address” to impeach the activist judges. But he didn’t. He signed something he didn’t have to directing town clerks to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples or be fired.”
- “Romney ….. directed his Department of Health to change the state marriage licenses to read ‘Party A’ and ‘Party B’ replacing ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife.’ Romney was under no legal obligation to do (this).”

(tax increases)
- “Big spenders Hillary and Ted K(ennedy) praised the health care law signed by Romney. ….. Romney Care increases government mandates, regulations, costs and bureaucracy with less choice for consumers. The Congressional Budget Office noted that this level of government intervention and regulation was ‘unprecedented.’”

(strict constructionist judges)
- “The Boston Globe reports that as governor, Romney ‘passed over GOP lawyers for three quarters of the 36 judicial court vacancies he faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or Independents including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights.’”

There are other troubling points Jackson raises, again with evidence:

(Right to keep and bear arms)
“He declared his love for Massachusetts’ fascistic gun laws and favors the Brady Law, which the NRA opposes.”

(Public safety and corruption)
- “Mitt presided over the opening of the most corrupt and most expensive public works project in U.S. history – The Big Dig tunnel-bridge system. This project killed nearly a dozen people in the 48 months since it opened. ….. Here was a public safety issue a conservative could have made a presidential-run-reputation on, exposing the Democrat corruption and fixing the problems. But he ignored it, preserving the public health menace for future victims. Instead, he took campaign contributions from international Big Dig contractors.”

(Moving conservatism forward)
- “When he was elected, Massachusetts had a Republican governor for nearly two decades. When he left, it didn’t.”

Perhaps Romney and his acolytes will acknowledge the obvious, and then try to explain why Their Man Mitt is still somehow the best candidate among the GOP’s top tier. I don’t see how.

Maybe they’ll lapse into the attack mode of John Mark Reynolds. If so, they will fool no one.

I do know this: They ignore Gregg Jackson, and the serious blemishes in Mitt Romney’s record, at their great and potentially grave peril.

________________________________________

UPDATE: Sorry, Kevin McCullough, your Townhall piece doesn’t cut it. Only specific answers to the specific items above will.

And spare me the garbage about “journalistic integrity” unless you can tell me you did a detailed sit-down interview with Barack Obama before ripping him — or have even done one since.

And Kevin, it takes a lot of gall to tell people like Gregg Jackson, Sandy Rios, and Brian Carmenker that they seem to be “in essence only telling half the story, and half truths,” and to move to within an inch of questioning their personal integrity on that basis.

If these three are telling less than the whole story, it’s because it’s all they have to work with. The other “half” needs to come from Romney and/or his minions.

And we’re still waiting. Out with it, people.

UPDATE 2: McCullough swings and misses at Strike Two, while the Evangelicals for Romney make it look like they’re responding without responding at all. Point-by-point is the only acceptable method, folks — and you know it. Update 2A: I’m also told that what “Mr. Journalistic Integrity” McCullough posted is the content of what was supposed to be a private e-mail without getting the permission of the e-mailer. I stopped making this mistake a year ago. McCullough’s been writing columns and opining for a decade or more. What’s his excuse?