On Monday it was reported that Governor Mitt Romney had said something inaccurate. Responding to charges about his change of positions on abortion, he had said in a recent interview that George W. Bush, too, “was pro-choice before he came prolife.” His campaign based that claim on a National Review article (which I wrote) about political converts to the pro-life cause. The White House denied that Bush was ever pro-choice, and Romney backed down. But Romney was right. In 1978, a newspaper in Lubbock, Texas, interviewed Bush during his first congressional campaign. The article reported that Bush, then in a primary fight with a more conservative candidate, opposed both the Human Life Amendment and federal funding of abortion. He was described as in favor of leaving the abortion question up to a woman and her doctor. “‘That does not mean I’m for abortion,’ he said.” Flash forward to 2000. The Bush campaign accused Gore of flip-flopping on abortion, and David Corn came back in The Nation with an account of his 1978 interview. Dan Bartlett, speaking for Bush’s 2000 campaign, gave this less-than-categorical denial to the Washington Post: “The best we can tell is, this is a misinterpretation of the governor’s position. The governor was pro-life before he ran for Congress, during his run for Congress and after he ran for Congress.” The Post explained that Bartlett, who hadn’t been with Bush 22 years before, didn’t know whether the 1978 campaign requested a correction. The Texas reporter told The Nation that she didn’t recall any complaint about being misquoted. Bush’s abortion views as reported by the local paper would have been wholly unsurprising for a Texas Republican in 1978. Gerald Ford and his father were pro-choice, as was GOP Senator John Tower, who was running for his third term that year. It is also not surprising that in 2000 the Bush campaign wouldn’t want to acknowledge it, having labeled Gore a flip-flopper on abortion. Understandably, the Romney campaign has little interest in taking on the White House over Bush’s changed views on abortion. But that they have changed shouldn’t really be in doubt. In the latest volley in the GOP primary’s war over abortion positions, past and present, Senator Sam Brownback’s campaign pounced on the controversy to accuse Mitt Romney of “untruthfully characterizing the record of President Bush on life issues.” But any untruthful characterization of George Bush’s abortion position hasn’t been Romney’s.