Michele Bachmann: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Bachmann, on Mitt Romney.

From the Lawrence O'Donnell show: clips of Michele Bachmann telling America several different versions of the "real truth" about Mitt Romney.

BACHMANN: No. (Mitt Romney) can't beat Obama because his policy is the basis of Obamacare. The signature issue of President Obama is Obamacare. You can't have a candidate who has given the blueprint for Obamacare. It's too identical, it's not gonna happen.

BACHMANN: (endorsing Romney, who appears on the dais next to her) This is what victory looks like!... to lend my voice, and my endorsement to Mitt Romney as our president, to take the country back!

MITT ROMNEY: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann! What a powerful leader in our party she is! What a privilege it is to have (her endorsement!)

BACHMANN: Mitt Romney is the big government candidate. That's not what we want in our nominee, it doesn't even survive the falling-off-the-chair-laughing test.

It's kind of funny that Bachmann's firmest supporters and fans admire her because she's so "fearless" and "principled." Which Bachmann do they admire? The cowed Dr. Jekyll-Bachmann who's proud to support Mitt and say Mitt is "what victory looks like?" Or the Mr. Hyde-Bachmann who hates the idea of Romney as the nominee because he's Mr. Big Government, no conservative at all, and a surefire loser against Obama?

As it turns out, her supporters admire Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It doesn't bother them a whit that Bachmann can fervently argue "A" on Monday, and then turn around and fervently argue "not-A" on Tuesday. That's because her fans are conservatives. For conservatives, whatever the conservative leaders say becomes true--is true, no matter what they saying the day before.

You need another example? Bachmann is a staunch foe of earmarks, says she won't seek 'em because they're deficit spending--and then turns around and seeks all kinds of earmarks. There's plenty of other examples: George W. Bush was a great leader/Nope, George W. Bush wasn't a great leader... stopping gay marriage is my number one priority/stopping gay marriage isn't my number one priority any more...

Thank God for video and other recording media. If we didn't have these, this stuff would just melt away into the ether and conservatives would be entirely free to sell their Alice in Wonderland reality to the voters.

The strange thing is that conservatives were the ones to tag Mitt Romney with the epithet "Etch-A-Sketch" candidate. (That's certainly true of Romney; his rhetoric and record indicate that he has no core positions.)

But why single out Romney? is my question. If you believe there's really any principled ideology connected to conservatism: they're all etch-a-sketch. All the candidates and demagogues and elected officials who claim to be conservatives: Reagan to Limbaugh, to the Bushes, to Gingrich to Bachmann...

...why would anyone support conservatism, if the leaders of the movement make a career out of flipping off both conservative principle and reality?  

See the clips here at this link:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the...