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Stephen Colbert told his audience Monday that like most conservatives, he's "long had respect for the Hispanic community, ever since they voted Barack Obama in for a second term" and said that was a "sobering moment" -- at least, it would be if he could stop drinking.

Colbert then opined that he thought Hispanics came to the United States to do the jobs that other Americans did not want to do, like voting for Mitt Romney, whose name he couldn't remember as usual, and he played footage of some of the political pundits out there, claiming that Hispanics should naturally be a part of their coalition. Colbert agreed.

COLBERT: Yes, Hispanic and Republicans go together like beans and very, very white rice... that is very suspicious of the beans. Now granted, we conservatives may have said a few things about immigrants in the past, but now that is just agua the Spanish word for bridge. Because Republicans have now reached out to a group they trust even less than Mexicans -- Democrats.

After showing the Republicans out there talking about their newfound embrace of immigration reform and the right wing pundits explaining how this is just going to make all of the racist statements in the past go away, Colbert made note of why they still might have some problems with those voters.

COLBERT: Yes, Republicans will take racism off the table, or have their bus boy do it. Either way it's gone.

After showing the yappers over at Fox attacking President Obama for coming out with his own plan and basically telling the President to sit down and shut up, Colbert got to the root of their problem and this recent pandering we've seen by Republicans.

COLBERT: Hispanic voters know that immigration reform is moving forward only because Republicans decided to quit blocking it. They're not going to give Obama credit for supporting it all along. That would be like passing a kidney stone and then thanking your doctor, instead of thanking the kidney stone for taking you on such a character building adventure of agony.

Colbert wound things up explaining that there is still another hitch for the GOP, which is actually following through and voting for any of this, which is the President's plan wanting to give visas for same-sex partners. As I already noted here, Harry Reid might have expressed some optimism (heaven forbid, as Colbert noted) for "treating gay people as people," but I don't share it. I don't see Republicans doing anything else but continuing to treat just about everyone other than old white men as second-class citizens if they think there's any political benefit in demonizing them.

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Now that Mittens has gone on Fox and tried to Etch-a-Sketch his 47 percent comments, we've got the surrogates coming out to defend him. Here's the first one out of the gate this morning -- Campaign Surrogate Admits Romney Is Changing Positions Just To Win Votes:

Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) admitted that the GOP presidential candidates was changing his positions and moving towards the middle in order to win over voters, during an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Friday morning. Gingrey’s comments, reminiscent of Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom’s claim that Romney would “Etch-A-Sketch” his positions after the GOP primary, came in response to the candidate’s recent claim that his 47% remarks were “completely wrong.”

“[T]he Republican, the conservative candidate in the primary, is always going to lean right and come back to the center for the general, the opposite for the Democrat,” Gingrey explained. “That’s all you are seeing here. It is very typical. We strong conservatives understand that. There are a lot of undecideds in this country…we want those votes too. So, this is campaign strategy.”

Romney began moving towards the center during Wednesday night’s debate, distancing himself from his $5 trillion tax cut plan, embracing portions of his Massachusetts health care law as a model for the states, faulting Wall Street reform for providing “the biggest kiss that’s been given to New York banks,” and considering eliminating tax deductions for oil companies.

I can't believe they're trying this stunt so close to the election and think they're going to come across as anything other than craven liars, but then, that's all Romney has done since he started campaigning, so it's nothing new. The man has been on every side of every topic imaginable, so why stop now? He's gotten some push back like this interview from the media, but for the most part he's been given a pass for his behavior.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Chris Matthews didn't pull any punches with his "Let Me Finish" segment this Monday evening where he took Mitt Romney to task for who he's pandering to: Matthews: Romney is ‘a speaker system,’ not a candidate:

Let me finish tonight with this Romney character.

I don't think Romney cares all that much about the presidency except that he wants it. If he weren't running, do you think this guy would be watching this or any other show on politics? Forget about it!

Mitt cares about three things: his faith, his family, his business.

Right now, his business is running for president. That's why he's interested in the presidency. It's his business to be interested. Listen to him answer questions. If the interviewer doesn't ask the most obvious thing, something that Mitt's briefers have been over and over with him, he seems stunned. He doesn't have an answer. Why? Because he never thought of that one!

Fact is, he hasn't thought about many things outside his zone of interest, which again includes his faith, his family, his business. And this is the most dangerous thing about this guy. Since he doesn't have a foreign policy, he buys the foreign policies of the powers that be.

So he sings the song of his neo-con so-called "advisers." What they really are, of course, are people who advocate a point of view — the need for a new war with each new Republican president — and they need someone in the White House to push it for them. They need a president who speaks their language. So they write his speeches. They want war with Iran. They just put it in the next speech.

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Jon Stewart took Mitt Romney to task for his embarrassing pandering to Southerners this week -- Jon Stewart Suffers Through Romney’s Southern Pandering:

Jon Stewart on Monday suffered through Mitt Romeny’s Southern pandering: from the awkward y’alls to grits and biscuits.

“You’re a guy who looks like you just stepped off of the Monopoly board,” Stewart said, “you really think you’re gonna appeal to Southerners by finding reference with them on the issues that matter most to them: their accent and choosing the right breakfast starch?”

Romney even asked Randy Owen, singer of the popular country band Alabama, to sing a few bars of “Sweet Home Alabama” … a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

Stewart wrapped things up with making fun of Romney's recent endorsement by comedian Jeff Foxworthy and his own edition of "you might be a Romney."

Digby's got more on the Foxworthy endorsement here -- Millionaire Whine 'O the Day.

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Mitt Romney has reinvented himself over and over again since he began campaigning in 1994, but he says there limits to what he will do to get elected.

During a visit to his campaign headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday, a reporter asked the Republican presidential candidate why GOP voters were not enthusiastic about his candidacy.

"You know, it's very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments," the former Massachusetts governor explained. "We've seen throughout the campaign that if you are willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative and attacking President Obama that you're going to jump up in the polls."

"You know, I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support," Romney said. "I am who I am."

Romney later told a reporter that he was not going to set his hair ablaze no matter "how hard you ask."

"It would be a big fire, I assure you," he added.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman also told reporters that he wasn't going to "light my hair on fire" to get support before quitting the race last year.

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann did a little pandering Wednesday during her visit to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

"Is there any better university in the history of the world?" she asked the crowd of students, who she called "Christian warriors."

"I think we all know it is awesome to be able to be here today... These are only the early days of what God has planned, not only for this university, but for each one of your lives as well."

Bachmann delivered her remarks on why it was it was important not to settle.

One of those reasons, she said, was "the very best man that I know, my husband Marcus Bachmann."

"And ladies and gentlemen, I challenge you. You can have it too! Don't settle in that department either! Make sure you get God's very best for you too. It's worth it."

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Some may think it's already too late, but Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says there will be no pandering from his campaign.

"I wrote a book two years ago," Romney said at a town hall event in Florida Wednesday. "I laid out my positions: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, federal spending, productivity growth, international trade, my military policy."

"I know that may make it more difficult in both the primary -- because I can't run to the right and then run to the left -- and in the general. But that's where I am. I think the American people recognize we're at a point of crisis and they want to hear the truth. And they can tell when people are being phony and are pandering to an audience. You'll see that in politics. You're not going to see it in my campaign."

He continued: "I can tell you this: President Obama is doing a great job rallying our base... I'm convinced that anyone on that stage at the Republican debate -- we'll have a debate on Thursday in Orlando. We'll probably have eight or nine people on the stage. Any one of them would be a better president than President Obama."

In the last few months alone, Romney has been accused of pandering on the START treaty, an anti-gay marriage pledge, right-to-work legislation, American exceptionalism, ethanol, and the tea party.

Washington Monthly's Steve Benen has even called the candidate a "pandering robot."

Mo Brooks, my congressional representative, got special attention from Chris Matthews last night. He's not the first Alabama politician to use eliminationist rhetoric regarding the undocumented, or the worst. But this is not the representation we need in Alabama's 5th congressional district:

Brooks had a little to say about immigration at the town hall I attended a couple of weeks ago. What struck me at the time was the tone of doom he had, which was in tune with the general tone of the affair. (Click here to watch the whole thing; I dare you). Illegal aliens are out for your job and your life -- be afraid, very afraid! Because no one ever gets murdered or killed in a car wreck with an American citizen.

Tourists leaving for Egypt are warned that if they are in a car accident, they should leave the scene as soon as possible so they don't get blamed for the accident -- on the supposition that if they had not been visiting Egypt, the accident would not have happened. That is exactly the logic Mo Brooks is using. He uses anecdotal, not empirical, evidence to paint undocumented immigrants as especially violent and prone to dangerous behavior. It's an old meme, one used on people of color in times past. It's ugly. It's also completely false. Someone should put a bullet in the brainpan of this zombie idea.