On Thursday night’s edition of “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert broke down former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)’s performance at Wednesday night’s presidential debate, saying that of course the governor excelled at a debate that was squarely in his area of expertise, “soul-crushing boredom.”

“The first half hour was an orgy of tax policy minutiae, and then, just to spice things down, they move on to the intricacies of welfare solvency,” he said. “It was off the hook! In that it would have been more interesting to listen to a dial tone.”

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Then Colbert examined Mitt’s curious slide to the left on many of his positions.

“I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans,” Romney insisted in one clip.

“Regulation is essential. You can’t have a functioning free market without regulation,” he said in another.

“Now you know me,” said Colbert, “I’m a staunch conservative and I condemn any Republican who distances themselves from everything he has said on the campaign trail. But it worked, so fuck it.”

In the second clip from Thursday’s show, Colbert addressed the “belly-achers on the left” who have warned that Romney’s attempt to “Etch A Sketch” away his old positions and run on a new, more moderate version of his platform could backfire.

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“The fact-check mafia’ is just upset because Romney won by pivoting,” he said, “exactly like his senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said he would after the primaries.”

Colbert then played video of Fehrnstrom’s famous “Etch A Sketch” interview and said, “And everyone agrees, last night Mitt was pretty sketchy.”

Watch the clips, embedded below in two parts via Comedy Central:

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Part One:

Part Two: