TAMPA— Bill Buckley used to tell a funny story about a heroic
attempt to survive a faux pas. A young lieutenant is obliged to
attend a social event in a prominent hotel with a general. In the
lobby, in an attempt to make conversation, the lieutenant says,
“Look there, that’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen,” nodding
toward two women in conversation on the other side of the lobby.
“That’s my wife,” the general said. In an attempt to
recover, the lieutenant says, “Oh, I meant the young woman with
her.” The general says, “That’s my daughter.”
The lieutenant, who knows he’s in deep yogurt now, thinks
desperately for a second, finally smiles, looks directly at the
general and says, “I never said it.”
Charlie Crist, Florida’s RINO governor who badly wants to
be a RINO U.S. Senator from Florida, is trying to run this same
revisionist scam. He claimed on CNN Wednesday that he never
supported President Obama’s $787 billion “stimulus” slush fund,
which he clearly did, on tape, over and over. He’s caught so much
flak from conservatives for this, and for other un-conservatives
acts, that in sheer desperation he’s trying to get Florida voters
to believe he “never said it.”
On February 10, when it appeared the Democrats would be
able to push through a $787 billion federal spending bill in the
name of stimulating the economy, but before it was finally
adopted, Crist traveled to Ft. Myers to appear on the same stage
with President Obama who was in Florida to whoop up his
budget-busting slush fund. On that day and that stage, Crist not
only embraced Obama, but he enthusiastically embraced the idea of
the federal government spending nearly a trillion dollars the
government doesn’t have on the general notion that somehow this
would put the ailing economy right.
Here’s what he said, while the crowd, enchanted by Obama’s
presence, repeated fortissimo, “Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we
can!”
Crist: “We’ve had to cut about $7 billion the past two
years and we haven’t raised taxes and we’re still in balance. But
to be candid, it’s getting harder every day. It’s getting harder
every day and we know that it’s important that we pass this
stimulus package. It is important that we do so to help
education, to help our infrastructure, and to help health care
for those who need it the most — the most vulnerable among us.
And let me finish by saying, Mr. President, we need to do it in a
bipartisan way. This issue is about helping our country. This is
not about partisan politics. This is about rising above that,
helping America and reigniting our economy.”
A few days later Crist appeared on Chris Matthews’
Hardball, and in answer to Mathews’ question, “Why
are you aboard the Obama bailout bandwagon?” Crist said: ” Well,
I call it a stimulus for the economy to try to help the people in
my state. It’s really that simple, Chris.”
Asked by Matthews why he was supporting the stimulus when so many
in his party weren’t, Crist said: “Because Florida needs it,
frankly. This would mean about $12.2 billion for Florida. It
would help us in the areas of education, health care,
infrastructure, and that’s where we need the help.”
Over the next short while, Crist made similar comments,
available on the Internet for anyone who wants to see and hear
them, on CBS, NBC, and Bloomberg. These statements are as clear
as spring water. Please adopt President Obama’s “stimulus” plan
because it’s good policy and will be good for the country, Crist
is saying.
Even the White House thinks Crist was on the stimulus team
last February. Asked at Thursday’s White House press briefing
whether Crist endorsed the stimulus plan in his joint appearance
with Obama, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “I
would say yes yes.” He said Crist’s unambiguous words speak for
themselves.
“I think he was very supportive of the legislation and
supportive of the benefits that it would have and has had for the
state of Florida in seeing positive economic growth,” Gibbs
said.
Well, that was then, when Obama’s approval ratings were at
about 110 percent. This is now, when Obama and his policies are
less popular. And Crist has been chastened by conservatives — a
major part of the Republican base he needs if he is to have any
hope of defeating conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco
Rubio in next August’s Republican Senate primary — for
supporting a bill which clearly is stimulating the living hell
out of the national debt but little else.
Now here’s an exchange between Crist and Wolf Blitzer on
CNN
Wednesday:
Blitzer: Let me interrupt for a second, governor. Do you
have any regrets about endorsing the economic stimulus
package?
Crist: Well, I didn’t endorse it. I — you know, I didn’t
even have a vote on the darned thing. But I understood that it
was going to pass and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the
benefit of my fellow Floridians.
Even for Charlie Crist, who on the campaign trail maintains
only the most informal relationship with truth, this in an
audacious switcheroo. This is beyond a John Kerry moment. This
isn’t just, “I was for it until I was against it.” This is, “I
never said it.”
Any reasonable person reading and hearing Crist’s remarks
in February would not conclude that Crist just wanted to assure
that his state got as much as possible from a program that was
already a fact, a reasonable position, but that he thought it was
a good idea to put almost a trillion dollars we don’t have into a
slush fund and spend it haphazardly on things Obama and his
administration fancied. Crist did endorse the stimulus, and his
claim that he didn’t requires a Joe Wilson, or others of his
directness, to parse.
Crist’s desperation is understandable. In the spring Crist
was more than 30 points ahead of Rubio in the polls and was the
prohibitive favorite to win the primary next August. Since then
the conservative Rubio has cut Crist’s lead in half, has closed
the gap a bit in fund-raising, and is making a race out of what
was once thought to be a Crist cake-walk. Rubio has the
mo.
This reversal of fortune has caused Crist to say some
peculiar things, including trying to claim he’s a fiscal
conservative on the basis that he had cut $7 billion out of the
Florida budget over the past two years. The truth is the Florida
Legislature was obliged to cut the money because the Florida
constitution mandates a balanced budget and the bad economy has
severely reduced Florida’s incoming revenue. Crist had little or
nothing to do with the cuts; in fact he vetoed millions of
dollars of them. Much of the Florida media called him on this
one.
Crist hasn’t just shaded the truth as in his budget-cutting
claims, but he’s backing off of previous liberal positions he’s
taken, including such as his call for carbon cap and trade. In
fact, Crist is backing off of so many of his previous dodgy
positions that he’s had to have one of those back-up beeper
signals installed on his campaign car.
We don’t know if the socially maladroit lieutenant above
ever made captain. But we can conclude that Crist’s chances of
becoming a U.S. Senator will diminish if he makes many more of
these fanciful attempts to redefine himself. If he keeps coming
up with these laughers, at some point not only will Crist’s lack
of a core philosophy be a campaign issue, but also his apparent
lack of character.
So here’s some free advice for Crist from a sage old
political consultant whose name I’ve forgotten: “Tell the truth
— voters like it, and it’s easier to remember.”
