This is about the specific issue of abortion, but it nicely sums up a lot of people's dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney in general:
William Saletan's exhaustive Slate overview of Mitt Romney's evolving position on abortion offers a number of noteworthy tidbits, including the revealing detail that the first time Romney had to take a public stance on the issue, during a failed 1994 Senate race against Ted Kennedy, he justified his decision to take a pro-choice position to fellow Mormon leaders using poll data. But the single most telling thing about the piece is probably that it takes more than 13,000 words to fully explain what Romney's position was and is. And by the end, the position itself turns out to be beside the point: Saletan concludes that neither Romney's early pro-choice persona nor his more recent development into a pro-lifer is "real." Romney's "soul," Saletan writes, is "in the flux, the transition between the two roles. It’s in the editing of his record, the application of his makeup, the shuffling of his rationales. Romney will always be what he needs to be. Count on it."
Let's face it, all politicians (or most, anyway) tend to "be what they need to be" and take contradictory positions. But Romney abuses the privilege. It shouldn't take 13,000 words to explain someone's position on anything, no matter how controversial or complicated the issue or how frequently the position has changed.
