Mitt's Multiple Choice Heritage

In 1994, someone who looked and sounded like Mitt Romney declared, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate.”

Today, apparently the same person writes: “I am pro-life and believe that abortion should be limited to only instances of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

“I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, because it is bad law and bad medicine. Roe was a misguided ruling that was a result of a small group of activist federal judges legislating from the bench.

“I support the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. And as president, I will support efforts to prohibit federal funding for any organization like Planned Parenthood, which primarily performs abortions or offers abortion-related services.”

Back then, his opponent for the Senate, Ted Kennedy, accused Romney of being “multiple choice,” but he insisted “since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law, and the right of a woman to make that choice, and my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people, should not be brought into a political campaign.”

In 1968, when his father was running for President, I spent some time with his parents. Lenore Romney was an intelligent, articulate and humane woman, and I can’t help wondering what flip-flop gene she passed on to her son from the male side of the family.

Romney Sr. went from front-runner to also-ran after switching positions on Vietnam with the claim that he had been “brainwashed” by generals and diplomats on his trip there into supporting the war.

Now on Father’s Day, his son has “evolved” 180 degrees on abortion to satisfy the Social Conservatives in his party, a chip off the old block whose campaigning a Republican colleague described as "like watching a duck trying to [expletive deleted] a football."

Back then, I thought that Romney’s mother would have been a better presidential candidate than her husband. I still do. The male Romneys are so easily brainwashed.

Update: Romney’s abortion flip is apparently not far enough because he won’t sign the Susan B. Anthony Pledge that he says might “end all federal funding for thousands of hospitals across America."

Says Michele Bachmann: “Gov. Romney should reconsider his decision not to sign the pledge just as he reconsidered his position on the life issue during the last campaign.” Wait, he is still “evolving.”