One of the few memes about Mitt Romney that got traction over his six years of running for president is one of flip-flopper. It has hurt his credibility and favorability to be on literally every side of every issue at one point or another.

So what are partisan hacks like David Brooks and David Gregory to do? Float an idea out there that flip-flopping could actually be a good thing in a president:

The bottom line is this: If Obama wins, we’ll probably get small-bore stasis; if Romney wins, we’re more likely to get bipartisan reform. Romney is more of a flexible flip-flopper than Obama. He has more influence over the most intransigent element in the Washington equation House Republicans. He’s more likely to get big stuff done.

What a nakedly obvious and pathetic ploy to sell a weak and failing candidate. And of course, there's no conservative meme that David Gregory is unwilling to echo out as a serious Beltway notion.

For what it's worth, there's no factual precedent behind the notion that Romney has worked in a more bipartisan fashion. Do we really think that the same man who had his vetoes over-ridden nine out of ten times in Massachusetts is the guy who is going to get big stuff done? Do either point out that Obama has offered up bills that were by and large created and promoted by conservative think tanks only to find reflexive partisan obstructionism?

Of course not. That would be counter to the cognitive dissonance necessary to be the kind of partisan hack that Brooks and Gregory so obviously desire to be.

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Mitt Romney cannot tell the truth. It isn't that he won't. It is that he cannot. He cannot because he is afraid of what it might mean and the damage it might do.

One of the most revealing passages in The Real Romney is the author's description of how young Mitt Romney took the demise of his father's campaign for President after George Romney claimed he had been "brainwashed" by the generals and diplomats into believing war in Vietnam was justified.

Mitt did not view the "brainwash" footage that caused his father such trouble until it was shown to him thirty-nine years later. But his sister Jane said the episode had a lasting impact on her brother. "The brainwash thing -- has that affected us? You bet. Mitt is naturally a diplomat, but I think that made him more so. He's not going to put himself out on a limb. He's more cautious, more scripted."

Mitt Romney took the wrong lesson from his father's disastrous campaign. He assumed George Romney's honesty is what cost him a shot at the White House. But it wasn't the elder Romney's honesty at all. People did not take kindly to the idea that the future leader of the free world, fraught as it was with Commies in the corners, was weak enough to let himself be brainwashed. Rick Perlstein's brilliant Rolling Stone article in January is required reading on this. Just a tease for you here:

When people call his son the "Rombot," think about that: Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills. Heeding the lesson of his father's fall, he became a virtual parody of an inauthentic politician. In 1994 he ran for senate to Ted Kennedy's left on gay rights; as governor, of course, he installed the dreaded individual mandate into Massachusetts' healthcare system. Then he raced to the right to run for president.

He's still inauthentic – but with, I think, an exception. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject of capitalism, he says what he sincerely believes, which happens to fit neatly with present-day Republican ideology: that rich people deserve every penny they have, and if people complain about anything rich people do, it's only because they're envious.

2002 Olympics

In the video at the top there's another example of how Romney reacts to situations, especially when he's put on the spot. Raw Story reports:

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