Romney goes weak on cutting entitlements?

What is worse here? To have Romney really not be that interested in cutting entitlements or having him tell the donors that because he thought that was what they wanted to hear?

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney surprised donors this morning at the Harvard Club in New York with an ambivalent answer to the question of whether America is ready to seriously alter its large entitlement programs.

Romney, speaking to more than 100 donors and supporters at the private breakfast, responded to a question from his supporters on the issue.

"I don't know," he replied, according to a source in the room, before going on to warn that Social Security and Medicare are -- in the source's paraphrase -- "basically the third rails in politics and he doesn’t know if we’re going to be able to actually make a dent in reforming them."

"It was really soft rhetoric, definitely not the kind of tough talk that’s going to be necessary in a Republican primary," the source said.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, however, said in an email that Romney's not ambivalent about entitlements. . . .