Multiple Choice Mitt strikes again. Romney is putting out a paperback version of his book, No Apology, but has edited out references to the individual mandate contained in health care legislation he brought into law in Massachusetts. David Bernstein reports:
In the original hardcover, Romney tried to carefully distinguish between the Massachusetts law and the national version that was nearing passage as he wrote.
But the Massachusetts model has become Romney's bête noire among conservatives, who loathe the national reform they call "Obamacare." The rewritten paperback swings much harder, proclaiming that "Obamacare will not work and should be repealed," and "Obamacare is an unconstitutional federal incursion into the rights of states."
In a follow-up post, Berstein pulls out the specific passage from No Apology that Romney cut out from the paperback edition:
One good example comes at the end of a paragraph boasting of the success of his plan in Massachusetts. The original paragraph ends with this sentence:We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country, and it can be done without letting government take over health care.That has been replaced with:And it was done without government taking over health care.
I recently wrote that we should expect a flip from Romney on how strongly he stands by the individual mandate he passed in Massachusetts. Romneycare is an anchor around his neck and he has to cover up his close ties to it and his status as the fathor of the individual mandate. Romney can say he isn't apologizing for the individual mandate, but when he turns around and edits his support for it out of his less than year-old book, it's really hard to take him seriously.
If Romney is really standing by his implementation of the individual mandate in Massachusetts, why is he editing it out of his book?