A profile in GOP alternatives: Mitt Romney

This is the second installment of my analysis of Obama's potential Republican foes in the general election. I have previously profiled Rudy Giuliani.

Today, Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, is up. Here is what Mitt had to say in an interview about catching Osama bin Laden.

"It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

On Romney's web site, a featured quote of Romney reads,

"Of course we get Osama bin Laden and track him wherever he has to go and make sure he pays for the outrage he exacted on America. ... We'll move everything to get him"

In 1994, Romney wrote a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP lobbying group, which stated,

"There will be children born to same-sex couples, and adopted by same-sex couples, and I believe that there should be rights and privileges associated with those unions and with the children that are part of those unions."

He's also said,

"With a matter as vital to society as marriage, I am troubled when I see an intolerant few wrap the marriage debate with their bias and prejudice."

On Romney's website, of course, you'll see this quote regarding Massachusett's decision to allow gay marriage...

"Last year the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck a blow against the family, as I'm sure you know. The court forgot that marriage is first and foremost about nurturing and developing children. Its ruling meant that our society is supposed to be indifferent about whether children have a mother and a father."

Of course, there is more to Romney than his serial flip-flopping. As impossibl as it may sound, Romney seems more devoted to gutting our legal rights than President Bush. In the recent debate, Romney was told that the White House has started to talk about closing Gitmo, and asked what he thinks should be done. He responded with,

"My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo."

This is one of those rare statements that is equally ambigious and bad. I'm not at all sure what it means, but there's really no good way to mean it.

And who can forget his statements at the CPAC conference?

"After you hear from me, you're going to hear from Ann Coulter. That is a good thing."

Later on in the speech, he said,

"Conservatism is a belief in strength. It's because of American's strength that we don't all speak German and that our kids don't all speak Russian. And it's because of American's strength that our grandchildren won't have to speak Pharsi or Arabic or Chinese."

This should be truly disgusting to everyone who isn't xenophobic, yet it drew loud applause. Of course, consider the source. Those people won't be solely electing our next President.

But let's all hope they do solely choose the Republican nominee.