George Lemieux penned a cynical op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times  yesterday in an effort to further distance himself from the person that he created, the Backstabber Charlie Crist.

Everyone in Florida Politics knows that Lemieux was responsible for creating Charlie.  He was the maestro—he made it all happen.  He won “Pollie” in 2006 for convincing Floridians that Crist was a conservative. LeMieux was chief-of-staff to Crist.  Then after a year, he left the Governor’s office to consult (read: lobby), but still spoke to Crist on a daily basis. After all of that, Crist appointed Lemieux (out of nowhere) to the United States Senate, an honor and distinction that will be mentioned in the first line of Lemieux’s obituary some day.

Now Lemieux is “shocked,” just “shocked(!)” at Crist’s political transformation.  He writes:

To my knowledge, no prominent politician in modern American history has changed his or her core principles this drastically, this quickly.

Gimme a break.

Charlie is the same as he has always been and George knows it. Charlie Crist has no core principles–and never has.

George knows better, but he needs to argue otherwise: that Crist used to abide by a set of core principles that he has since abandoned. Otherwise, what would it say of LeMieux that he knowingly stood by such an unprincipled, career-minded opportunist weasel like Crist all those years?

Mind you, Crist deserves nothing but contempt for endorsing the fifth column leftist that goes by the name Barack Obama.  However, this op-ed written by LeMieux is nothing more than an attempt to excuse and absolve himself from the years he stood with Charlie Crist, enabling and facilitating everything he did so he can run for statewide elected office again.  He thinks people will forget or forgive him saying that no one knew who Crist was or how he would change.

That is false.

But Lemieux portrays Crist as “conservative enough” so he can say “Yes, I worked with Crist all those years–when he was a conservative.  When he stopped being a conservative I had no choice but to leave him.”

But LeMieux wants us to believe that Crist was “conservative enough.”

Really? —Was  permitting Jim Greer to run amok and destroy the Republican Party acceptable behavior?—To Lemieux it was because he was paid to the tune of $150,000 to do nothing.  Crist’s record as Governor was abysmal. He didn’t govern; he just pined for the next office.

The book “Game Change” documents Lemieux’s role in shilling to get Crist to be the Vice President, regardless of who the Republican nominee was in 2008. There is no book on the governing principles of Governor Crist’s administration because there were none. Crist won primary races for Attorney General and Governor, because he campaigned like a conservative.  But he never really amassed a record until after he became governor, during which time he undermined conservatism  for political expediency as per the advice and counsel of George LeMieux.

Charlie Crist was lost as governor, which is why an underfunded, virtually unknown Marco Rubio was able to successfully challenge the sitting governor of his own party in the Republican Primary.  And let’s not forget that LeMieux did everything he could behind the scenes to undermine Rubio’s candidacy up until the day Crist left the party, but well after Crist had proven himself to be anything but conservative.

LeMieux was the political equivalent of a mob button man, taking people out to clear the path for Charlie Crist to continue his political ascent.

Unfortunately, for them, Marco Rubio got in the way.  Otherwise, LeMieux would still be calling himself a Charlie Crist Republican today.