On MSNBC’s Daily Rundown this morning, top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told Chuck Todd’s goatee that, regardless of what the Supreme Court ruled, Romney still considers Obamacare’s penalty to be a penalty, not a tax. This probably has something to with Romneycare’s identical use of a penalty to enforce its health-insurance mandate. So while everyone from conservative talking heads to GOP congressional leaders to prospective Romney running mates coordinate on lambasting President Obama for imposing a massive, freedom-raping tax hike on America, the GOP’s own presidential nominee is sticking with “penalty.” This has really turned into one enormous semantic clusterfuck.
