The Des Moines Register, in all its great wisdom, has decided to endorse GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney — the first time the Register has endorsed a Republican for president since 1972, when it endorsed Richard Nixon.

Yeah — Nixon.

Good work, Register.

The Register used to have great minds working there, such as Donald Kaul, one of the sharpest newspaper columnists of his day and our day (who, I note, should have won several Pulitzer Prizes); now, it has Republican apologists.

1972 was Nixon’s Watergate year, the scandal that led to his resignation under the threat of impeachment a couple of years later. I’m inclined (perhaps even reclined) to say the Register’s judgment is unimpeachable, except that, well …

Nixon skipped out of town before he certainly would have been impeached and then run out of office by the Senate.

OK, the Good Ship Mitt hasn’t done anything impeachable.

Of course, that’s largely because he hasn’t had the chance, given that he’s not been in office recently.

(Dog strapped to the top of the car on a vacation to Canada doesn’t count for impeachment, Gail. But it counts for something. Judgment, maybe? What, exactly, was the Good Ship Mitt teaching his children as dog feces smeared down the car windows? That the free market is full of …?

What we learn from that experience is that you never, never employ a dog kennel when you go on vacation, no matter how rich you are.

Vacation? (Not so much for the dog, it appears.) Canada? What about Maine? — it’s great there. And kind of near Canada. And Maine allows you to let your dogs off the tops of your cars. [Full disclosure: I’ve lived in Maine. You think fresh corn on the cob is just about the greatest thing ever? — which I do — you haven’t lived until you’ve had fresh lobster in Maine.])

Well. In any case, Romney has certainly been Dr. Two-Face lately. What happened to the conservative Mitt that we’ve seen on display for the last two years or so? He appears to be as gone as the dog on the car roof.

Iraq? Romney once supported Presdient George W. Bush’s/Vice President Dick Cheney’s invasion of Iraq with great passion. But now? “We don’t want another Iraq,” the Good Ship Mitt says.

Afghanistan? Romney used to harshly criticize President Obama for announcing a timetable for withdrawing troops from the beleaguered country. Now, he agrees that our troops should be out by 2014. Which is, of course, Obama’s plan.

Or take the auto industry. (Please, as the old joke goes.) Romney was vehemently against the bailout of the automakers, even though he’s from Michigan and his father was an auto executive before he was governor of the state.

But now? The Good Ship Mitt makes it sound as if bailing out the auto industry was his idea.

It’s as if Romney has gone on vacation from all the notions he previously enunciated.

And we all know what happens when the Good Ship Mitt goes on vacation.

Hide your dogs.