Time’s Mark Halperin created the latest Sarah
Palin-related controversy yesterday when he published a column
quoting unnamed Mitt Romney aids blasting Sarah Palin as a
lightweight. Now Romney himself has weighed in, defending Palin
and attacking the unnamed sources as “Anonymous numbskulls.”
According to Halperin’s
report:
One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor,
and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner,
says of Palin, “She’s not a serious human being.” Another
Romney intimate warns, “If she’s standing up there in a debate
and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in
trouble.”
Palin’s team soon fired
back in the Politico. Yet this morning, Romney tried
to put out the fire on his Twitter feed, writing:
TIME says unnamed
advisors disparaged @SarahPalinUSA. Anonymous numbskulls. She’s
proven her smarts; they’ve disproven
theirs.
Last month, Romney had flattering things to say about Rudy
Giuliani in a USA Today op-ed and I
noted at the time that it appeared the former Massachusetts
governor was trying to avoid a problem he had in 2008, which is
that he was the most disliked candidate among his rivals, leading
to an “everybody vs. Romney” dynamic by the time primaries rolled
around. This is one of the factors that helped John McCain get
nominated. Clearly he’s trying to win over — or at least diffuse
tensions with — prominent Republicans.
