Well, reports do call the guy “Mitt Romney’s senior adviser”, but from the way Etch-A-Sketch Eric Fehrnstrom sometimes expresses himself in public, you think he was working for Barack Obama:
Prominent Dems including White House chief of staff Jack Lew and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly argued in recent days that the fee for not buying insurance under the health care law is in fact a penalty and not a tax.
They got support from an unexpected quarter on Monday: the Romney campaign.Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown that he agrees – the fee is a penalty and not a tax, as the Supreme Court ruled last week.
“The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court,” Fehrnstrom said. “He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice [Antonin] Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax.”
All Fehrnstrom needed to say was that his guy agreed with the Scalia dissent.
The Romney campaign would be well advised to take away Mr. Fehrnstrom’s media privileges.
Gotta disagree. What he said here was fine. Indeed, I wish he had gone even further in explicitly showing that it is not a tax and is therefore unconstitutional under Scalia’s opinion.
Even if it’s unconstitutional, it could still be considered a tax. It probably is unconstitutional. If Congress mandated that people who don’t buy tickets to Michael Moore documentaries should be taxed, would that be constitutional? I think not, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. I don’t see how Obamacare is any different.
Actually, the dissent wasn’t “written by Scalia”, at least not entirely. It was an unsigned dissent, joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito.
Maybe Fehmstrom just wanted to feel some LibLove. Just like Justice Roberts.
Seriously, Murdoch is right. Gov. Romney needs to get some pros. Of course, Fehmstrom’s a pro. But, does he want Romney to win, or does he just want to look cool for the camera.
He just gave Dear Leader a clip for his re-election campaign: “See? Even Romney’s spokesman says it’s not a tax.”