Republican campaign advisor Ed Rollins, freshly in place as chief strategist for Michelle Bachmann, used multiple talk show appearances to kick around Sarah Palin. From Politico:

“Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years,” he said. “She got the vice presidential thing handed to her, she didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship.”

“Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard,” he said. “She has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values.”

Rollins appears to feel the need to separate Bachmann from Palin, even in the absence of a Palin candidacy. I am not quite sure of the strategy, from Bachmann’s perspective, as she appears to be feeding from the same base. But what do I know? Pat Buchanan, on Morning Joe, expressed the same reservation about the Rollins comments. And pro-Palin blogs reacted:

Aides to Palin didn’t respond to inquiries about Rollins’ comments, but a writer on the blog that serves as her supporters’ main voice, Conservatives4Palin, demanded that the Minnesota congresswoman “either affirm her support for the long-time beltway fossil’s idiotic comments…or refudiate them.”

Such good sport! Rollins is rolling the dice, and with these two going at each other Mitt Romney just keeps raising money, building organization, and showing Republicans that he can be a serious competitor to President Obama. Mitt has got to love it. Another day goes by without someone asking him his position on Medicare.