Atlantic Video: Romney Grilled, Grills

DES MOINES -- Maybe it was a way of saying, "Welcome to the Big Time." Mitt Romney held his first media avail -- we like to shorten words like "availability," which itself is a fancy word for "press conference" shortly after a stop at Ft. Des Moines, where Ronald Reagan became a 2nd lieutenant. The questions came fast and none were softballs.

Matt Stuart of ABC News wanted to know why Romney excluded people of no faith from his "freedom requires religion" formulation. Romney was a little testy, explaining that he meant that religion seeded the value of freedom for the country.

Jonathan Martin asked Romney whether he thought his speech would help calm evangelical concerns in Iowa. Romney wouldn't bite.

And here's Romney's fairly contentious exchange with CNN's Dana Bash:

Comments

fuck romney

Posted by me | December 7, 2007 7:05 PM

Dana may not know anything about the issue of immigration, or have much in the way of common sense, but she certainly knows that bashing conservatives is a good career move at CNN.

Posted by Dave | December 7, 2007 7:34 PM

Now that was awesome. I love how he put her in her place. Reporters need to start asking questions that are important to the American people.

Posted by Kevin | December 7, 2007 8:37 PM

Mitt's complete Mormon dodge in his big "speech" yesterday has ticked lots of people off. Amazing that the press has finally turned against him. Their gushy treatment of Mitt and his Mormonism (just read the horrific Newsweek profile from a few months back) was getting sickening...

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Posted by matt | December 7, 2007 9:24 PM

Romney won that one.

Kevin, unfortunately, immigration is important to the American people at the moment. It was a legit question.

Posted by Tom | December 7, 2007 10:23 PM

Man Mitt made her look pretty stupid.

Posted by Jason | December 7, 2007 11:02 PM

"Testy"? Yeah, I can't stand the guy, but score one romney; i think the right follow up would have been something like--"with such a system in place, would you then expect homeowners to verify the immigration status of contractors employees?" the problem is that his answer is basically: "what we need here is more government bureaucracy." but all things being equal, he's right, checking (or actually divulging) would violate those employees' privacy.

Posted by JC | December 7, 2007 11:34 PM

matt, we might well have seen different speeches. The one I saw got praise from nearly everyone in the media. Get your facts straight.

Posted by husky | December 7, 2007 11:39 PM

... but she [Dana Bash] certainly knows that bashing conservatives is a good career move at CNN.

Ms. Bush asked a stupid, clueless question. Not exactly bashing, no? Mitt, and his supporters, should be thrilled to get those questions. It made him look good, and made the reporter look like she was on her first assignment for the high school newspaper. You know. Sort of a Tim Russert in drag.

Posted by Cinderella Ferret | December 8, 2007 11:31 AM

There was no contention, just an embarrassed reporter who was trying to make Romney look bad. She had to speak above other reporters to make her all important (arrogant) follow-up question heard. Dana needs to be careful when she is trying to debate someone of Romeny's intelligence and experience.

Posted by tk | December 8, 2007 2:10 PM

Matt, doesn't it say something when the people getting ticked off can't react except with stupid questions? They can't even react logically because they're full of anger and jealousy. The media has hardly been "gushy" towards him. Its been an uphill battle ever since he started.

If this is the "press turning against" Romney, bring it on, they've got little to stand on. Your comment seemed out of place matt... learn to connect the dots and make relevant commentary associated with the article. Sorry amigo.

Posted by BT | December 8, 2007 4:37 PM

Mittster is a stupid flipflopper without no principles at all. He just blows with the wind.

He is the most deceiving and cunning politician of all time.

Posted by Mark | December 9, 2007 2:19 PM