Eric Fehrnstrom, my old Wingo Square running buddy and pit-crew chief for the Romneyboy 2.0, had a time of it this morningon my man Chuck Todd's electric television program. (Please note the lead sentence of that linked post; the Etch-A-Sketch is going to lead your obit, Eric.) Specifically:

"The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court. He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice [Antonin] Scalia that very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax," Fehrnstrom said, later adding: "The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax." Todd expressed his confusion given that this contradicts the existing Republican talking point on the health care law as a tax: "So he agrees with the president that you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax?" "That's correct," Fehrnstrom said. "But the president also needs to be held accountable for his hypocritical and contradictory statements because he's described it variously as a penalty and a tax."

Flibbity, floobity, gurgle, gleep!

This is actually a semantic scam that the Romneybot ran through its previous iteration. Back when Romneybot 1.0 was governor of Massachusetts, it was required by law to submit a balanced state budget every year. It also knew that the state was bleeding jobs. It also knew that it wanted to run for president in 2007, so it could not in any way raise taxes, or the Republican base would set upon it with clubs and torches. So, as governor, it jacked up fees on practically everything — ask the kids who went to UMass during those days about those — while explaining that a "fee" was not really a "tax." (The fact that there is no practical difference was something a previous generation of Massachusetts Republicans had used like a lug wrench on Governor Michael Dukakis.) It also knew that, in 2008, it would need some plan for health-care reform as an alternative to the dreaded Hillarycare that the Democrats were still touting. So, in Massachusetts, he started talking about his own individual mandate as a "fee," and not a tax. Here's this, from a piece by Scott Helman from The Boston Globe on April 6, 2006:

Romney said he considered that an assessment, or a fee, not a tax. The distinction is important to Romney, who many expect to tout the health-care plan on the stump as he moves toward a presidential run, because he would suffer politically if Republican antitax advocates determine that he supported a tax increase.

Tell you what, Willard: I've decided to pay my "taxes" with real money. I'm going to pay my "fees" and "penalties" with shiny stones. What say you?

(Photo Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog)

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io