The former Speaker punched back hard at a suggestion that he return money from Freddie Mac -- alienating both wings of his party in the process.

It seems like it was just this fall that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were accusing President Obama of socialism -- directly in Gingrich's case, indirectly in Romney's. In fact, it was just this fall.

So how did we get to here? On Monday, Romney, stumping in New Hampshire, took a shot a Gingrich's work consulting for Freddie Mac. "He was in the business of connecting folks with government," Romney said, calling Gingrich's claim that he made $1.6 million as a historian bogus. "That would make him the highest paid historian in history," he quipped.

Asked about the comments while traveling elsewhere in the Granite State, the former House Speaker fired back. "If Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, then I would be happy to at least listen to him," Gingrich said. "I would bet you $10, not $10,000, that he won't take the offer."

The two Republicans are accusing each other of profiteering, but both situations -- however distasteful certain sectors of the electorate may find them -- are perfectly legal exercises of capitalism. As the GOP struggles to find a message that appeals to its conservative base (and especially the more activist Tea Party wing) while also corresponding to straitened economic times where making money hand-over-fist isn't as kindly looked upon by the general electorate, the result is this sort of cognitive dissonance.