Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney Roundup (011508): Dean Barnett’s NY Times Column

Today’s “Roundup” has but one entry. It deserves a post of its own, so it’s getting one.

Dean Barnett, now of the Weekly Standard and, until late last year, a co-blogger at Hugh Hewitt’s place, has a piece in the New York Times, which is apparently the venue of choice for Hewitt (e.g., his Harriet Miers nomination blow-up whine; my post on it at the time is here) and now his acolytes to vent their spleen.

Barnett tries to tell us (HT EyeOn08 via a Gregg Jackson e-mail) that:

• Objectively Unfit Mitt is a great guy and a great leader; it’s just that his campaign is lousy.
• That he should have been concentrating on his experience as a robber baron businessman, and not on social issues, where he’s perceived as insincere (you don’t say?).
• That he wants to be president out of a sense of duty, not out of personal ambition.

Stop it, Dean. You’re killing me.

Read the whole thing. Though woefully incomplete, it is still a devastating critique. A quick look over at Hewitt’s place indicates that he is apparently unavailable for comment on his former co-blogger’s contingency plans to leave the reservation.

I for one will take Barnett more seriously when he apologizes for calling Brian Camenker and Mass Resistance purveyors of “homophobia” and “undiluted hatred,” instead of the heroic truth-tellers and coal-mine canaries they have been for years.

It’s this simple, Dean, and Hugh, and all of you others who have been putting lipstick on this pig for almost a year — Romney’s social conservative claims ring hollow because Mass Resistance and others have shown beyond doubt that they are hollow.

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UPDATE: EyeOn08 also caught the essence of the Romney campaign, and in my opinion of Romney the politician, in this Politico story:

A well-publicized weekend photo-op for Mitt Romney turns out to have been missing a piece of information that might have undermined its credibility: the unemployed single mom at the center of the event was the mother of a Romney staffer.

….. In introducing (Elizabeth) Sachs, Romney discussed the economic difficulties in the community and described the particular plight of his hostess — but made no mention of her ties to his campaign.

“It means a real tough setting for a mom with two sons,” Romney said. “One son is still in high school. Another son [is] getting ready to go off into the police academy in the west.”

Ironically, when it came time to take questions from the reporters gathered around Sachs’ kitchen table, Romney joked: “If you don’t want to answer any questions, that’s fine, too. What I’ve learned is, if they ask a question, you can answer something else.”