But for Romney to somersault on something so personal — his own non-involvement in the Vietnam War — makes one wonder if Romney is any different from an exterior set on a Hollywood back lot: Clean and pretty in the front and all flat, plywood planks in the back.

Today’s Romney says, more or less, “Too bad I was not part of a military quagmire that tragically cost the lives of 50,000 GIs.” Yesterday’s Romney said, more or less, “How fortunate I was not to be part of a military quagmire that tragically cost the lives of 50,000 GIs.”

Conveniently enough, today’s position plays well in a GOP primary filled with hawkish voters, and now led by the Vietnam War hero, Senator John McCain (R – Arizona). Romney’s 1994 comments more snugly suited Massachusetts — a liberal, Democrat-dominated state where such dovish remarks would have gone down well.

If Romney cynically shifted from his old position to his new one on Vietnam service, he is even more cold and calculating than previously thought.

And if he sincerely went from saying in 1994 that he had not desired to go to Vietnam to 2007’s longing to have been there, one wonders if there is anything at Romney’s core but breeze and tumbleweeds.