Remember the anti-Bush meme that he was kind of a Bubble Boy -- shielded from the press in order to mitigate his gaffe-prone nincompoopery? Well here we go again...
Time magazine’s Mark Halperin labeled the Romney campaign’s relationship with the media “toxic,” and few scribes covering either campaign say they feel the love. Or even the like. [...]
Add the fact that Romney has proved to be gaffe-prone, especially when he speaks off the cuff. Over the past few weeks, the Romney traveling press has been locked in a quiet skirmish with the candidate’s Boston brain trust over ambushing Romney when he greets supporters after events.
At first, campaign officials tried to bar reporters. When that didn’t do the trick, Romney himself told scribes, “Not on the rope line!”
By the way, they have to expect gaffes and contradictory remarks when his whole campaign is built around a strategy of saying the opposite thing the Democrats are saying -- oftentimes contradicting his own previous remarks. They're not even really gaffes, they're a byproduct of a cynical campaign.