Mitt Romney: The Smartest Candidate In The Room For Not Signing The Family Leader Pledge

Mitt Romney caught flack for not signing the the Susan B. Anthony List's pledge on abortion. However, at the end of the day, the former governor of Massachusetts showed his wisdom in not signing the pledge.

Now, people are creating a false controversy over Mitt Romney's refusal to sign the The Family Leader's pledge. If there is any controversy here, its the fact that Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum were stupid enough to sign the pledge before the provision supporting slavery was dropped: 

A social conservative Iowa group has retracted language regarding slavery from the opening of a presidential candidates'  pledge, amid a growing controversy over the document that Michele Bachmann had signed and Rick Santorum committed to.

The original "marriage vow" from the Family Leader, unveiled last week, included a line at the opening of its preamble, which suggested that black children born into slavery were better off in terms of family life than African-American kids born today.

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President," read the preamble.

But this evening, amid growing questions aimed at Bachmann, Family Leader officials said they'd removed the slavery language from the preamble.

“After careful deliberation and wise insight and input from valued colleagues we deeply respect, we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued, and such misconstruction can detract from the core message of the Marriage Vow: that ALL of us must work to strengthen and support families and marriages between one woman and one man," the group's officials said in a statement. "We sincerely apologize for any negative feelings this has caused, and have removed the language from the vow.”

Just as Mitt Romney was correct in not signing the SBA pledge, he was wise in refusing to sign the Family Leader's pledge even with the slavery provision removed from the language of the document: 

"Mitt Romney strongly supports traditional marriage but he felt this pledge contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign," said campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul late Tuesday night.

Mitt Romney has also released a statement from State Representative Renee Schulte of Cedar Rapids: 

"One of the reasons I support Gov. Romney is his support for traditional marriage," Schulte's statement said. "However, I am glad he won't sign this ill-advised pledge. The Family Leader would do more to advance the issues that conservatives like Mitt and I support if they kept it simple."

Mitt Romney was the first 2012 candidate to refuse to sign the pledge. Other candidates such as Newt Gingrich and Gary Johnson, have followed Mitt Romney's wisdom in not signing the pledge. 

Other candidates such as Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul and Herman Cain have yet to sign the pledge. Herman Cain did give a speech at the Family Leader's Presidential Lecture Series yet we have don't have any news of him signing the Family Leader's pledge. But we do know that he has stated that he won't sign any pledge more than three pages long. 

Once again, Mitt Romney comes out as the winner of this controversy.  Unlike Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum who didn't read the fine print before endorsing it, Mitt Romney did read the fine print and saw how awful this pledge was. Among the 2012 candidates, he's the smartest candidate in the room for being the first to recognize how terrible this pledge was and refusing to sign it.

If candidates have difficulty reading or ignoring the fine print of a pledge, then they're not fit to be President. We already have politicians who are willing to vote for a bill just to find out what's in it. We're not going to elect a President who doesn't read the find print of a bill or treaty before passing it into law.  

That's why we need Mitt Romney in the White House. He doesn't wait to find out what's in it by signing it. He actually reads whats in it before signing on the dotted line.