While our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney has criticized Obama’s cynical, politically-timed power grab, he has yet to say whether or not he would repeal President Obama’s executive decision to no longer enforce our laws with respect to somewhere around one million Mexican illegals. Instead, first thing this morning, the Romney campaign went right back to talking about Obama’s failed economy:

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A number of my fellow conservatives, many of whom I admire, are hitting Romney for not taking a stand on this, but what exactly is Romney supposed to do? This entire story is, quite obviously, a coordinated trap set up by both the Obama campaign and their White House Media Palace Guards to change the subject and gum Romney up in divisive identity politics for the next ten days.

Within seconds of Obama’s unilateral move (remember when the media hated those?), many of the Media Palace Guards I follow on Twitter were tweeting things like “game changer,” because, after having no choice but to report on Obama’s very bad two weeks, they were all in agony and desperate to change the subject — desperate for a “game changer.”

So the media tried to turn Obama violating his oath of office to uphold the laws of our country into exactly that. The MSM quickly turned Obama’s disregard for the law into a story about his compassion, decisiveness, and how brilliant the move was politically.

Then, of course, they trained their fire on Romney.

 

But the no-win situation was created by the lapdog media with a single question that you can bet is a White House talking point: “As president, will you repeal the Obama policy?’

If Romney says he won’t repeal, the Right explodes (and rightfully so), and we have ten days worth of stories about Romney losing his base.

If Romney says he will repeal, the media still attacks. Suddenly we have twn days worth of stories about all these poor oppressed illegals, about Romney’s problems with the Hispanic vote, about Romney-The-Cruel.

This was the plan:

1. Obama releases the news on Friday in order to affect the Sunday talk shows. (Team Obama also knew Romney would be on “Face the Nation” with their water-carrier Bob Schieffer).

2. As they always do, the Sunday talk shows comply with White House strategy by making Obama’s compassion and political brilliance The Big Story. This is also a move to set up the narrative for the coming week regardless of  how Romney answers the repeal question.  

3. Regardless of how he answers the question, Romney enters a world of media-created hurt for the following week.

Instead, and wisely in my opinion, Romney lifted his middle finger to the entire ploy and refused to take the bait.

Now the story is, “Romney won’t answer,” which isn’t flattering but is certainly better than all the alternative stories you can bet the media had already written.  

And now Romney is back on track talking about Obama’s failed economic policies, which is the only ground upon which this election will be won.

Yes, leadership is the act of making tough decisions. But sometimes the toughest decision of all is to take the hit for not making a decision. You never fight on the enemy’s turf. Never. Even if it means turning tail and running. Ask those “cowards” George Washington and Sam Houston about that.

My guess is that Romney will answer this question in his own time and on the ground of his choosing.

This is chess not checkers, and right now — as we saw on Friday — Obama and his MSM pals are frantically playing checkers.

Romney, unlike McCain, who always allowed the media to put him in reactionary mode, is not.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC