You know that jobs report was bad when this guy would rather talk about the trillion-dollar albatross perched on his head instead.

A pro-mandate Democrat who can’t get his story straight on whether it’s a tax attacking a pro-mandate Republican because he can’t get his story straight on whether it’s a tax. Perfection. Choices, my friends: They’re what elections are all about.

“One of the things that you learn as president is that what you say matters and your principles matter,” Obama told a local Cincinnati NBC affiliate, according to excerpts provided by his campaign. “And sometimes, you’ve got to fight for things that you believe in and you can’t just switch on a dime.”…

“And the fact that a whole bunch of Republicans in Washington suddenly said this is a tax — for six years he said it wasn’t, and now he has suddenly reversed himself,” Obama noted. “So the question becomes, are you doing that because of politics? Are you abandoning a principle that you fought for, for six years, simply because you’re getting pressure for two days from Rush Limbaugh or some critics in Washington?”…

“On the healthcare bill, Mr. Romney was one of the biggest promoters of the individual mandate,” he said. “In Massachusetts, his whole idea was that we shouldn’t have people who can afford to get health insurance to not buy it and then force you or me or John Q. Public to have to pay for him when he gets sick. That’s irresponsible. That’s exactly what’s included as part of my healthcare plan.”

To recap: The One campaigned against Hillary by opposing the mandate, then reversed himself once in office. He did damage control by swearing that it wasn’t a tax, then had his own SG tell the Supreme Court that it was, then let his campaign spokesman go out this week and lie his ass off about what had happened. Meanwhile, just to locate this within O’s wider campaign strategy, he spent 15 years transparently lying about his position on gay marriage before magically “evolving” a few months ago, and he just recently decided that he could in fact implement chunks of the DREAM Act by executive fiat even though he said last year that he couldn’t. If you believe Marc Ambinder and GQ, the White House is planning to start pushing for reforms to America’s drug-war strategy — but not until next year, as to do so now would be too risky for the Unicorn Prince’s chances in November.

And yet it’s Obama who’s lecturing Romney about fighting for what you believe in and not turning on a dime.

I wonder if he’d dare do that in any context except health care, as it’s the one policy area where he really did make good on his promise to the left to get something big done. Somehow it’s hard to imagine President “Kill List” sounding quite so superior about principles if this were a debate over, say, counterterrorism and national security. Give him credit for a smooth bit of messaging, though, in navigating the left’s two contradictory narratives about Romney. One: He’s a tea-party radical far to the right of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Two: He’s a political weathervane who stands for nothing. By demagoging Rush Limbaugh, Obama gets to have it both ways — Romney’s a weathervane who stands for nothing and can therefore be manipulated by radicals to the right of Goldwater and Reagan. Click the image to watch.