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Mitt Romney Flip Flops

"I’m a strong believer in stating your position and not wavering." — Mitt Romney's assertion to NARAL Pro Choice, Massachusetts, 2002

But as we will see, Mitt Romney changes his positions more frequently than even the most adventurous porn stars. (Romney's onetime presidential rival John Huntsman called him a "perfectly lubricated weathervane.") Here are examples of why Romney has earned nicknames like Flip Flopney, Mitt the Flopple and Multiple Choice Mitt ...

"It's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." ... [but] ... "Of course I would have ordered taking out Osama bin Laden." So it seems Mitt Romney would only have taken out Osama bin Laden if the task was easy and inexpensive.

Romney has accused President Obama and even his conservative rivals of being Washington insiders guilty of pork barrel spending. But here is what Romney told people about himself, when he wanted to impress them with his ability to get money out of the federal government:

• "I am a big believer in getting money where the money is. The money is in Washington."
• When Romney addressed the New Bedford Industrial Foundation, his advice in a Power Point presentation was to "boost federal involvement."
• Romney also said, "I've learned from my Olympic experience [that] if you have people that really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there you can get money to help build economic development opportunities ... We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games. That is a huge increase over anything ever done before and we did that by going after every agency of government."
• Romney also cited more than $1 million that one his colleagues managed to get for the Olympics from the Department of Education, concluding: "That kind of creativity I want to bring to everything we do."

Romney has also flip-flopped repeatedly on women's reproductive rights:

• "I respect and will protect a woman's right to choose."
• "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country."
• "I sustain and support that law [Roe v. Wade] and the right of a woman to make that choice [abortion]."
• "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard."
• "I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it." ... [but] ... "Roe v. Wade has gone too far."
• His position was clear and he gave his word to NARAL Pro Choice ... [but] ... "I never really called myself pro-choice."

He has also done a U-turn on mandated health insurance:

• "I like [compulsory health insurance] mandates. The mandates work." ... [but] ... "I think it's unconstitutional on the 10th Amendment front."
• "Being called 'the grandfather of Obamacare' is 'a compliment.'" ... [but] ...  "I would repeal Obamacare" ... because it's a "costly disaster."

Romney likes mandates when he's the one doing the mandating. And according to Mitt the Flopple, it is a compliment for him to be called the grandfather of a costly disaster that he would repeal. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Here are more u-turns on healthcare:

• "I'm proud of what we've done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing [Romneycare], then that will be a model for the nation."
• "At the time I crafted the plan in the last campaign I was asked is [Romneycare] something that you would have the whole nation do, and I said no. This is something that was crafted for Massachusetts. It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation."
• In a Fox News interview, Bret Baier noted: "Governor, you did say on camera and in other places, at times you thought [Romneycare] would be a model for the nation." only to be told by Romney: "You're wrong, Bret."

Here are more about-faces by Flip Flopney:

• "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King." ... [but] ... "I did not see it with my own eyes." [Because they never marched together.]
• "I think the minimum wage ought to keep pace with inflation." ... [but] ... "There's no question raising the minimum wage excessively causes a loss of jobs."
• "I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there." ... [but] ... "It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam."
• "I will work and fight for stem cell research." ... [but] ... "The stem-cell debate was grounded in a false premise."
• "Ronald Reagan is ... my hero/" ... [but] ... "I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."
• "This is a completely airtight kennel mounted on the top of our car." ... [but] ... "[Animal lovers] are not happy that my dog loves fresh air."
• His favorite novel was Battlefield Earth ... [but] ... after people pointed out the book's mountainous flaws, he switched to Huckleberry Finn.
• "I don’t line up with the NRA." ... [but] ... "I’m a member of the [NRA]."
• "I believe the tax on capital gains should be zero." ... [but] ... "It’s a tax cut for fat cats."
• "I’m going to take burdens off the back of the auto industry." ... [but] ... He wrote an essay titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

In a 1994 letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney wrote that he was in favor of  "gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly" in the military. But during the 2007 presidential debates, he insisted that they should continue to serve secretly and dishonestly, under "Don't Ask Don't Tell," which he wanted to keep. 

"I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." ... [but] ... I have hunted varmints since then. More than two times." After his staff corrected the first statement above by saying that Romney had only been hunting twice in his life, he issued the second statement as a "clarification." The only "varmint" hunter I can think of is Elmer Fudd, so it seems obvious that Romney is utterly out of his element when talking about hunting.

"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts." ... [but] ... "I don’t support any gun control legislation, the effort for a new assault weapons ban, with a ban on semi-automatic weapons, is something I would oppose."

"I believe the world’s getting warmer. I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. ... And so I think it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you're seeing."  ... [but] ... "My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us."

"These carbon emission limits will provide real and immediate progress." ... [but] ... "Republicans should never abandon pro-growth conservative principles in an effort to embrace the ideas of Al Gore."

"The TARP program … was necessary to keep banks from collapsing in a cascade of failures." ... [but] ... "When government is… bailing out banks… we have every good reason to be alarmed."

"I would like to have campaign spending limits." ... [but] ... "The American people should be free to advocate for their candidates and their positions without burdensome limitations."

"Those… paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process toward application for citizenship." ... [but] ... "Amnesty only led to more people coming into the country."

"I’m not in favor of privatizing Social Security or making cuts." ... [but] ... "Social Security’s the easiest and that’s because you can give people a personal account."

"Based on the numbers of American Muslims … I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified." ... [but] ... "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith."

"I'm not intending to, at this stage, sign a document [pledge not to increase taxes] which would prevent me from being able to look specifically at the revenue needs of the commonwealth. " ... [but] ... "Signing the pledge now sends a very clear message to those in Washington who have voted against tax relief and for tax hikes that such actions will never grow our regional and national economies."

Shortly before the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was attacked over an inflammatory anti-Islam film, it issued a press release which said that the U.S. "condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions." The embassy's press release concluded: "We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." Romney jumped on the statement, claiming that the Obama administration’s "first response" was to "sympathize with those who waged the attacks." Romney was wildly off base for multiple reasons. First, the embassy issued the statement hours before the attack. Second, it came from diplomatic personnel in the field, far from the White House. Third it included no "apology" for American values or sympathy for the extremists, as Romney claimed. Then Romney did an interview with "Good Morning America" and embraced embassy's position, saying: "And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn’t do it. Of course, we have a 1st Amendment. And under the 1st Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film."

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