Talking Out of Both Sides of His Mouth

This week as part of his extended attempt to change the subject, please, Mitt Romney told a Sarasota rally:

We face a Washington that’s broken, that can’t get the job done. The president today threw in the white flag of surrender again. He said he can’t change Washington from inside, he can only change it from outside.

Back in 2007, while he was running for President against Sen. John McCain, Romney said:

I don’t think you change Washington from the inside. I think you change it from the outside.

Not only had Romney repudiated his own words, he had (as so often) quoted Barack Obama selectively. The President’s entire statement was:

I’ve learned some lessons. Most important is you can’t change Washington from inside, only from the outside. That’s how some of our biggest accomplishments like health care got done—mobilizing the American people.

Obviously he was talking about a success, not a surrender.

This could count as simply another example of Romney reversing himself completely over the years in an attempt to please a different audience. But since it also involves a erecting a double standard in order to criticize the President, it meets the definition of OIP Derangement Syndrome.