The release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe report has some journalists in apology mode, saying they paid too little attention to Mitt Romney’s 2012 observations about the Kremlin’s threat to U.S. interests.
Back in 2012, Senator Romney. R-Utah, was running for president. And he tagged Russiaas the United States’ greatest geopolitical foe.
Back then, Romney “was broadly mocked” over that position, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted on Friday. “I was among reporters who should have given it more weight.”
Additional context – Romney described Russia as the greatest US geopolitical foe in his 2012 presidential campaign, and was broadly mocked. I was among reporters who should have given it more weight. https://t.co/slHeAMmcoy
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 19, 2019
New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow also joined in. So did Washington Examiner correspondent David M. Drucker, who said he wanted to “reset” his 2017 op-ed titled, “Romney was right about Russia.”
I’ll join this mea culpa. I aired interviews with Romney where I completely failed to grasp how prescient he was being about Russia. https://t.co/LVXewv2pOP
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) April 20, 2019
Seems like a good time to reset my July 2017 look-back at @MittRomney, Russia and the 2012 presidential campaign. https://t.co/yKvxNuCimp
— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) April 20, 2019
People on Twitter panned journalists for issuing those statements, suggesting they were disingenuous.
“Oh how I wished I had been fairer to Romney about Russia in 2012” is the close cousin of “wow McCain used to be a bloodthirsty psychopath but now I think he is Good”
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) April 20, 2019
Not only are journalists being disingenuous when they ‘apologize’ for burying Romney over his (correct) assessment of Russia in 2012 when that race was extremely close, they’re only doing it now because they can use that faux apology to attack Trump.
How incredibly convenient.
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) April 20, 2019
And one reason the press is willing to show respect to Romney now is that he’s been critical of Trump’s behavior. Otherwise, they’d still be calling him a rube. But they see him as more of a political ally than an adversary, so they can acknowledge his prescience. https://t.co/kf0zxndwNZ
— Christopher J. Scalia (@cjscalia) April 20, 2019
And one reason the press is willing to show respect to Romney now is that he’s been critical of Trump’s behavior. Otherwise, they’d still be calling him a rube. But they see him as more of a political ally than an adversary, so they can acknowledge his prescience. https://t.co/kf0zxndwNZ
— Christopher J. Scalia (@cjscalia) April 20, 2019
Their comments came as Romney caught heat for criticizing the president over claims made in the special counsel’s report. “I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President,” he said in a statement tweeted Friday.
That brought a Saturday tweet from Trump, saying that if Romney had “spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!”
Both Democrats and Republicans have seized on the report and what its findings meant for American democracy. While the administration celebrated the fact that no one helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election, Democrats have emphasized the extent to which Russian interference did occur.
Donna Brazile called the report a “wake-up call.” “We had a foreign power, another government that was interfering in our election,” said Brazile, who served as interim chairwoman for the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
