Remaking Romney.

You can always tell when the presidential campaign is beginning, because that's when liberals begin cross-dressing to pose as conservatives. This transformation was even more transparent than usual during Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's recent trip to South Carolina and Missouri. Away from home, Romney, a Republican, posed as a "pro-life" candidate for president in 2008. He also expressed his staunch opposition to same-sex "marriage" and "civil unions."

Funny, but as a resident of Massachusetts, the image Mitt Romney recently presented in the South and Midwest clashes with the Mitt Romney I've come to know. Yet the local Republicans in Spartanburg, South Carolina, took Romney's rhetoric at face value. "I had a meeting with him one-on-one and he told me he is definitely pro-life," Spartanburg County Republican Party Chairman Rick Beltram told the press after Romney's speech.

Of course, Romney's recent rhetoric is a far cry from statements he made during his 2002 run for governor of Massachusetts. "Let me make this very clear: I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose," Romney promised during the 2002 gubernatorial debates with Democratic candidate Shannon O'Brien. If Romney supports a "right to choose" on abortion, then how can he be "pro-life"?

Romney himself attempted to explain away the contradiction to Boston newspapers two days after his Spartanburg speech: "My position is the same. I do not favor abortion personally--I'm personally pro-life, if you will. But I do favor maintaining the laws in the Commonwealth as they are, and that's the commitment I made."

Romney may claim that he is "pro-life," but his real position is no different from that of Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, or any other liberal Democrat. Even Romney's running mate in the 2002 race, current Massachusetts Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, noted during the gubernatorial campaign that "there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Mitt Romney's position on choice and Shannon O'Brien."

Romney has made a similar Clinton-esque semantic leap on the homosexual "marriage" issue. In Spartanburg, he unequivocally stated: "From day one, I've opposed the move for same-sex marriage and its equivalent, civil unions." Several days later Romney reiterated to the Boston press that he'd "made it very, very clear from the very beginning that I do not support gay marriage or civil unions.... You'll never find a statement anywhere that says I support civil unions."

Well, not in so many words. But he has backed these unions just the same. In August 2003, Governor Romney told the editorial board of the Lawrence (MA) Eagle Tribune that although "marriage should be between a man and a woman," he also believes that "those in domestic partnerships should have medical insurance rights, survivor benefits, child visitation and adoptive parent rights--the same civil rights married couples enjoy." In other words, the equivalent of marriage.

When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down the Goodridge decision in November 2003 "legalizing" same-sex "marriage," Romney issued a short three-sentence written statement declaring "I disagree"--while calling for "appropriate benefits to nontraditional couples." Only after the Massachusetts legislature had failed to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the decision, did Romney enter the marriage debate in earnest. At that point the debate had shifted to a constitutional amendment to enshrine so-called civil unions in the state constitution. He ended up backing the proposed "civil unions" constitutional amendment.

Romney is certainly no hardcore opponent of the militant homosexual lobby. As governor last year, he proclaimed May 15 "Massachusetts Gay/Straight Youth Pride Day" and "urge[d] all citizens of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance."

Yet the neoconservative press has been lavishing praise on Romney for the past two years for his "leadership" on the marriage issue. "Mitt Romney is a very brave man," National Review columnist Maggie Gallagher wrote on June 25, 2004. She added that Romney is "making the single most eloquent and articulate defense of our traditional understanding of marriage I have heard from an American politician."

Gallagher, the Washington Post revealed on January 26 of this year, was paid $41,500 during 2002 and 2003 by the Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services to write reports supporting the administration's position on marriage issues. So a reasonable question is: Was Gallagher's column another taxpayer-paid edition of the Bush administration propaganda campaign, or it was a "freebie"?

Ironically, Arline Isaacson of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Caucus made a very appropriate statement about Romney. "In one venue he swings for civil unions and in another venue he says he has always been against them," Isaacson told the Boston Herald. "The governor's kind of 'bi' about this issue."

That's what always happens with far-left liberals who are positioning for a run for president. They're kind of "bi" on a lot of issues.