I Can't Come Up With Another Romney Flip-Flop Headline

The man has literally outlasted my ability to write witty rejoinders. This time it's about immigration:

Romney boasted of cracking down on illegal immigrants as governor and denounced an immigration bill that the Arizona senator introduced with Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 2005 [...]

"McCain-Kennedy isn't the answer," Romney said in a well-received speech to conservatives in Washington this month, describing it as an amnesty plan that would reward people for breaking the law and cost taxpayers millions to provide them benefits.

But that is markedly different from how Romney once characterized McCain's bill, elements of which are receiving new attention in Congress and from President Bush. Indeed, Romney's past comments on illegal immigration suggest his views have hardened as he has ramped up his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

In a November 2005 interview with the Globe, Romney described immigration proposals by McCain and others as "quite different" from amnesty, because they required illegal immigrants to register with the government, work for years, pay taxes, not take public benefits, and pay a fine before applying for citizenship.

"That's very different than amnesty, where you literally say, 'OK, everybody here gets to stay,' " Romney said in the interview. "It's saying you could work your way into becoming a legal resident of the country by working here without taking benefits and then applying and then paying a fine."

Romney did not specifically endorse McCain's bill, saying he had not yet formulated a full position on immigration. But he did speak approvingly of efforts by McCain and Bush to solve the nation's immigration crisis, calling them "reasonable proposals."

The Boston Globe actually has audio of Romney's prior remarks, which are only two years old, at the link.

We are experiencing a near-critical snark shortage about Romney's changing positions. Everything that can be written has been written. I'm really getting uncomfortable about it. There could be almost a year more of this!

I guess Romney's promoting recycling by forcing us to recycle old "Romney is a Flip-Flopper" headlines.