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Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, on Sunday said Mitt Romney's decision to flip flop on his call to "absolutely" abolish federal disaster aid after Hurricane Sandy struck the east coast was an example of the "the Etch-A-Sketch Romney."

Speaking to CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Saunders pointed out that Romney's flip flop was what senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was talking about when he said that Romney could shake up his campaign “like an Etch A Sketch” and “start over again” after spending the primary season pandering to conservative voters.

"It is fair game for the press," Saunders admitted. "He did say that he wanted to move this federal agency -- for states to run things. And I'm sure a lot of people don't think that's a good idea. You don't see him talking about that a lot this week, do you?"

During a Republican primary debate earlier this year, the former Massachusetts governor had said that abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “the right direction” and eliminating all federal disaster relief was important because “we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids.”

“It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

But after repeatedly ignoring reporters’ questions about that topic in the wake of this week’s super storm, Romney reversed course in a statement on Wednesday.

“I believe that FEMA plays a key role in working with states and localities to prepare for and respond to natural disasters,” the candidate said. “As president, I will ensure FEMA has the funding it needs to fulfill its mission, while directing maximum resources to the first responders who work tirelessly to help those in need, because states and localities are in the best position to get aid to the individuals and communities affected by natural disasters.”

"I think we've seen the Etch-A-Sketch Romney," Saunders told Kurtz on Sunday. "He moved to the right in order to win the primary and now he's moving toward the center. And we're seeing, I think, the real Romney, they guy who's a technocrat, the guy who would come in with his pencil and move money around for FEMA to try to make FEMA be more effective and more cost effective."

"So, I think it's fair for people to point it out and ask which one is the real one."

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The last time I payed any attention to the San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders was back in January of last year, when she was helping Howard Kurtz carry water for Sarah Palin and her crosshairs map just after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. This week on Reliable Sources, she decided to play the false equivalency game with Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Sorry Debra, but Harry Reid tweaking Mitt Romney about his tax returns and playing some hardball politics is not the same as Michele Bachmann's insanity and her comments about the HPV virus supposedly causing a woman's daughter to suffer mental retardation.

And Bill Press is right, there is one person who can clear this up and it's not Harry Reid. It's Mitt Romney and the media should be asking why he's only released one year of his tax returns so far.

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CNN's Howard Kurtz and the San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders did their best to give cover to Sarah Palin for her crosshairs map targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It's pretty bad when even Politico hack Roger Simon has had enough of your nonsense. As he rightfully pointed out, Palin doesn't have to be directly responsible for what happened with this shooting to have a conversation about the violent political rhetoric coming from her and the rest of the right wing noise machine in America and the fact that it needs to stop.

Edit: A tweet by Howard Kurtz on Saturday.

KURTZ: You just saw that montage, Roger Simon, and you can't make a worse mistake than that, to declare a member of Congress dead. And I find it disappointing, because we've been through so many stores like that, where fragmentary information turns out to be wrong.

SIMON: Well, you're always going to get certain things wrong on these stories. The number of dead always climbs and shrinks, and climbs again.

I remember as a young school kid hearing that Vice President Johnson had been shot and President Kennedy had been wounded. That got flipped around. The fact is, we go with what we hear. That's often wrong.

KURTZ: But why not wait? Look, we understand it's happening, you're seeing sort of news gathering in its roughest and rawest form. Why not wait until it's confirmed. If she was dead, we would have found out 20 minutes later. [...]

KURTZ: And on that point, Debra Saunders, a couple of hours after this tragic shooting, even as we weren't sure who was alive and who was dead, I Googled "Gabrielle Giffords" and "Sarah Palin." And lots of stories and blog posts came up talking about Sarah Palin, 10 months ago, putting up a map of the Democrats she wanted defeated, and using crosshairs, gun sites, to represent those targets, and, of course, she used the rhetoric about "Don't retreat, reload."

And in a way that I found to be -- you know, first of all, I guess how about a decent interval? The victims were still being rushed to surgery. But I also felt like, was it fair to bring her into something that she had nothing to do with?

SAUNDERS: Well, it was ideological opportunism. I mean, it's very human, when something like this happens, you want the villain to be the person you hate. And so a lot of people rushed to do that.

You know, I've got to tell you, I'm a conservative. When I heard this story, my first thought was, oh, no, it's a right-wing nut with a gun. And I think that these stories about the Tea Party being a ticking time bomb are crap. I find them offensive, but we know that there are extremists.

KURTZ: But you said, oh, no, it's a right-wing nut with a gun, because you feared that then anybody on the right would, by implication, be blamed for this shooting?

SAUNDERS: No. Because I feared it was true. I mean, that was my first thought.

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Howard Kurtz asks his panel if the gridlock in Washington is just business as usual or "a political version of the snowpocalypse". Of course conservative columnist Debra Saunders thinks that the media is picking on the poor little old GOP even though they have as so many people have reported done an absolutely unprecidented amount of obstruction since Barack Obama took office.

Keli Goff almost sounds like she's going to make some sense in response when she talks about the riffs in the Democratic Party as well until she decides to throw the progressive wing of the party under the bus instead of recognizing the fact that there are corporatist Dems that may as well be Republicans to contend with.

Lynn Sweet adds a bit of sanity to the conversation and reminds Saunders and Kurtz about some minor detail called the filibuster rule.

KURTZ: So is the press prepared to assign blame for this endless gridlock or just report it as a natural paralysis, a political version of the snowpocalypse that has hit D.C. this week?

Joining us in Atlanta, Debra Saunders, columnist for "The San Francisco Chronicle." In New York, Keli Goff, political blogger for TheLoop21.com. And here in Washington, Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for "The Chicago Sun-Times."

Lynn Sweet, Obama keeps talking about bipartisanship. He wants to meet with Republicans, hold hands, sing songs. I don't know.

Is the press right to be reacting so skeptically?

LYNN SWEET: Well, sure, because nothing in Congress has happened in a bipartisan year for the first year of the Obama White House, no major legislation that has passed has done so in any bipartisan roll call. So, this upcoming February 25th bipartisan meeting that Obama is calling is a chance to see, once again -- and I guess the press will evaluate -- is it real bipartisanship or just some kind of a showcase?

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