Romney’s sign problem

Should we call it SignGate?  Or MomaGate?

In case you missed tblade’s post below, poor Mitt Romney got caught doing yet another stupid thing.  He happily posed in South Carolina with a woman who was holding the now-famously misspelled “No to Obama Osama and Chelsea’s Moma” sign.  Here’s the goods, via TMZ.com:

Now, of course, Romney is pathetically denying that he had any idea what he was doing.  Check this out — emphasis is mine:

“I don’t look at all the signs when I’m having pictures taken. I have a lot of pictures taken with people,” Romney said. “I don’t really spend all that much time looking at the signs and the T-shirts and the buttons. I don’t have anything to say about a sign somebody else was holding.” …

“I get pictures taken all the time, T-shirts and signs and so forth; I don’t subscribe to all them,” Romney said. “I can’t keep track of all the pictures I get taken. … I put my arms around folks. I’m sure some of them, upon inspection, you’ll say, ‘Uh-oh, why were you with that person?'”

Uh, Mitt?  See, the problem is that the pictures don’t lie.  This wasn’t a sign that “somebody else was holding.”  This was a sign that you yourself picked up and held high, actually obscuring the sign’s owner in doing so.

Here’s another goof by Romney — and a big shout-out here to Jerid Kurtz at Buckeye State Blog, who held Romney’s feet to the fire:

“I’m just concerned because I can remember where I was at on Sept. 11,” said Jerid Kurtz, a New Hampshire-based contributor to Buckeye State Blog. “How can you compare any American to Osama bin Laden? How can you do that?” … “You know what? Lighten up slightly,” Romney said. “There are a lot of jokes out there. I’m not responsible for all the signs I see.”

Oooh, gosh darn it, but there are those pesky facts again.  This wasn’t a sign you just happened to “see,” Mitt, it’s one you went to the trouble of taking out of its owner’s hands and holding up all by your own little self.  Kurtz actually went further, getting Romney to autograph a print-out of the sign.  Check it out, as well as the YouTube of Kurtz grilling Romney.

And the next time Romney gets all worked up about doubling Guantanamo, maybe he’ll stop for a sec, take his own advice, and “lighten up slightly.”