Why Won't Romney Lie To A Terrorist?

This comment was posted in Jonathan Martin's blog Spin Away @ Politico.com (about the Republican YouTube debate) - "McCain took Romney to task on the torture question (a reference to waterboarding), and while Mitt had a good point that you don't put everything on the table (no president has before, McCain wants to be the first) but he wasn't forceful enough on the issue, didn't cite good examples and let him take it." posted by : bigmo November 28, 2007 at 11:52 PM

What is up with this flat out dodging of a simple yes / no question by answering "don't put everything on the table". This is straight out of the Hillary playbook in the chapter "How to not answer a question".

The theory is, if I understand it correctly, we don't want to say "we will not waterboard" because it would tip-off the terrorists and influence their training.

This defies all logic!

Scenario 1) Romney gets elected president. At this point the terrorists open their laptops and google everything Romney. They see he is uncommitted on the waterboarding issue so they train for this possibility. We capture a terrorist and decide to waterboard him. He is trained. He is prepared. We get nothing.

Scenario 2) McCain gets elected president. At this point the terrorists open their laptops and google everything McCain. They see he says "no waterboarding" so they don't train to be waterboarded. We capture a terrorist and decide to waterboard him. What does the terrorist do? Say "Hey, your president said he is against waterboarding!!!" To which the interrogator replies "sorry he changed his mind". The terrorist is not prepared, not trained, and we get vital information.

Romney, like Hillary, will say or do anything to get elected. Some call it hedging. Some call it waffling. Some call it flip / flopping. Some call it "I changed my mind". Some might even call it lying. It truly amazes me they do not hesitate to hedge, waffle, flip / flop, change their mind, and even lie to us, their fellow Americans, in order to get elected.

But heaven forbid they get caught lying to a terrorist.

Originally Posted @ Politico.com November 28, 2007