HOW SOON BEFORE ROMNEY FLIP-FLOPS AGAIN AND DECLARES DRUG-DEALING HATEMONGER A MARTYR?

When the U.S. embassy in Egypt was attacked on Tuesday, Mitt Romney didn't directly defend the film that was reported to be the reason for the protesters' outrage. He did, of course, attack the Obama administration because the embassy sought to reduce tension:

"It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

By Thursday, he had decided that he didn't like the film, although he believes it's legal (which is the Obama administration's position as well):

Romney told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that while he had not seen the film himself, he knew enough to declare it a "very bad thing."

"You know, I think it's dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say," Romney said. "And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn't do it."

Romney said that the film is clearly legal under the Constitution.

"Of course, we have a First Amendment, and under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do," he said. "They have the right to do that, but it's not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film."

But we all know that Romney is terrified of his base. So I wonder how long it's going to be before he reverses his position on this, and declares the makers of the film to be martyrs to an Obama administration assault on free speech.

The Obama administration asked -- asked, nor ordered -- Google to remove the offending film clip from YouTube. To me that's no different from an administration asking a newspaper not to publish classified material -- it's a request that a private speech purveyor weigh the possible consequences of a particular speech act. And Google decided to leave the clip up, though it's being blocked in certain countries. Real fascists would laugh if you described that as fascism.

Nakoula Bassseley Nakoula, who seems to be the "Sam Bacile" who helped spearhead the film, has been taken in for questioning -- but Nakoula, who was convicted on meth charges in the 1990s and on check-kiting charges in 2009 (and was, alas, a federal informant), is being charged with parole violations:

... the terms of Nakoula's prison release contain behavior stipulations that bar him from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.

But the right has circled the wagons and decided that the filmmakers are the real victims here. It isn't just this wingnut blogger declaring that the "US government [is] now acting as [the] censorship arm of Islamists." It's former Cabinet secretary (and one-time Paul Ryan mentor) William Bennett railing at the administration at the Values Voter Summit:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he said, "wonder[ed] aloud whether...our own constitutional freedoms go just a bit too far."

... Bennett went on: "A Muslim mob brutalizes and murders an American ambassador, a representative of the United States of America, to disgrace him, and to disgrace us. They would murder us, and brutalize us, too -- all of us. And our government reacts by shuddering and shaking, and wondering that the consequences of our First Amendment, that blames an inconsequential fool of a filmmaker with a paltry influence, for the venom unleashed in another part of the world. God help us. God help us."

It's the decision by Roger Ailes -- the de facto information minister of the Republican shadow government -- to throw gasoline on the fire by bringing on Pam Geller to discuss the situation on Fox & Friends:

TUCKER CARLSON: So, the president said the U.S., quote, "rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. What is he saying when he says something like that?

PAMELA GELLER: Well, this is adherence to the blasphemy laws under the sharia. Under the sharia, you cannot criticize or offend Islam. By condemning the movie, he's condemning freedom of expression. He's condemning freedom of speech. And he also sanctioning these murderous rages....

So just denouncing the movie is a violation of the filmmakers' First Amendment rights? Yes, this is the Sarah Palin view of free speech -- but it seems to be very much in sync with what the rest of the right thinks. Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, he denounced the film, too.

Which is why I think he's going to walk that denunciation back soon, or at least begin to start charging the Obama administration with a advocacy of laws against blasphemy against Muslims. If he doesn't, he'll remain in defiance of his base.