Same as it ever was...

I'm sure the talking heads will be talking about last night's Presidential Debate in this news cycle, and little else, so I thought I'd pose some questions to them, even though I'm nowhere near naive enough to believe they read this blog. This said, though, I do believe these questions deserve to be asked: 

• What difference does Gov. Romney's change in demeanor, this reset, the appearance of this new self, this Makeover n-point-O, really make?
• Isn't he still the same inconsistent panderer he's always been? 
• Doesn't this "performance" just point to his well-documented slippery, chameleon tendency to say anything depending on the circumstance? 
• Didn't he just pander on far more topics than usual last night and do it all in one sitting? 

Sorry, but I just don't see how anyone who has paid even a little attention to him could take away that he's in any way sincere about anything. He's constantly changed his positions on too many things to think otherwise. 

Look, it's OK to change your mind about things. We all do this. We think a certain way, then we're confronted with a new reality, or some new perspective, or some new information, and we adapt or change our thinking in the face of this new thing (or cling desperately to the wrong position). But Romney doesn't do this. What he does is abruptly state a changed position based on the situation in which he finds himself, the people he's talking to, the person interviewing him. 

There is a big difference here. And this isn't just a flip-flop argument, rather, this is a naked-pander argument.

Regardless of what he said last night, and I admit he was well-rehearsed (more on that in a moment), he remains nothing more than who he is: Willard "Mitt" Romney, the guy who has so transparently and consistently proven time and time again that he cannot speak consistently about, or be consistent with, any topic. The guy who constantly forgets that there is a technology called video that captures for posterity that which someone says, a position someone has had, and allows for later comparisons.

Mitt is consistently inconsistent. 

And... how does the far right feel about him coming so abruptly to the middle on so many things? Didn't he just throw his base off a cliff? Didn't he just put them in a position to show they're being inconsistent, being hypocritical? Or am I just being naive... again?

Although Romney was well-rehearsed, well coached, he just came off sounding as if he was repeating, by rote, what he was told to say. I didn't get any sort of feeling that he believes what he said. He was merely doing what he has so consistently done in the past: saying anything depending on the situation, in order to close the deal.

Anyway, it makes no sense to me that anyone could come away from last night thinking Romney's somehow different than he's proven to be. 

And even as the talking heads talk, please allow me to paraphrase the Talking Heads: Romney has been, is, and will be, same as he ever was.