Pointing out that Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on something is like pointing out that water is wet, but this one is a real doozy, even for Mitt.

In a meeting with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, he was asked whether health insurers should cover birth control. Here's his jaw-dropping answer:



It’s a question as to, should you get a car painted, you know, red or blue. I mean you can decide which you’d like. People who want to have contraceptive health insurance can choose that in their policy. Those that don’t have — that choose not to can buy a policy with or without. It depends on the kind of policy you buy of course.

Well, no. Whether health insurers should cover birth control is actually nothing like deciding whether to get a car painted red or blue. Nothing. In fact, that just might be the worst simile in the entire history of similes. Boy, do you suck at this, buddy.

Now get ready for the flip:



My own view, by the way, is that an employer should say to an employee, "We're going to provide to all of you, let's say, I'll make up a number, $12,000 worth of coverage, and you can use that to choose the policy of your choice. And you can choose a very expansive policy, comprehensive, or you can choose a narrower policy, and you keep the difference. And you can use that to cover your other expenses or health care as you feel appropriate." I do believe that we're far more effective having people make their own choice than having government tell them what they have to choose.

Of course I support the Blunt Amendment.

Well, gosh, that sounds like a nice idea, letting people decide what kind of health care and coverage they want, doesn't it? Of course, it is the exact opposite of what Romney said earlier this year:The Blunt Amendment, you may recall, would have given employers the right to decide what kind of health coverage and care their employees can receive; in other words, it would have done the exact opposite of what Romney now claims to support by denying people the right to make their own health care choices.

Of course, Romney was at the time a little confused about whether he supported the bill. First, he said, "I'm not for the bill." Then his campaign insisted that he did support it. Then he explained that, despite his Harvard education, he "didn't understand" and "simply misunderstood" the simple yes-or-no question of whether he supported it because he thought the interviewer "was talking about some state law." Then, just for added measure, Sen. Roy Blunt himself came to Mitt's rescue to defend his confusion, saying the yes-or-no question "was about as confusing and disjointed as you could be."

But once Blunt and the Republican Party and the Romney campaign explained to the candidate that of course he supports the bill to allow employers to choose what kind of health care and coverage their employees should have, Mitt was completely in support of taking that decision away from employees.

Except now his "own view" is that employees, not employers, should get to make their own health care decisions. Which is exactly what opponents of the Blunt Amendment argued at the time. Which is exactly the opposite of what Blunt and the Republicans were trying to legislate.

So what's Mitt Romney's position on birth control coverage? All of 'em.