Mitt Romney’s emergence as a top contender for secretary of state in the Trump administration makes me chuckle.

I might even laugh out loud if Mitt actually gets the call from the president-elect.

Mitt said some pretty harsh things about Donald J. Trump during the election. He called him a “fraud,” a “phony”; he questioned whether Trump was hiding criminal activity by refusing to release his tax returns; he said Trump University demonstrated Trump’s lack of real business acumen.

Now the 2012 Republican presidential nominee is being vetted for the top job a State.

Trumpkins are upset about it. They don’t want this man speaking for the president on foreign policy. They distrust him.

If the 2012 GOP nominee hadn’t said those things about the 2016 nominee, then I would be all for Mitt joining the Trump team. You see, given Trump’s absolute absence of any government experience — at any level — someone such as Mitt could be seen as a leavening influence. After all, he did serve one term as governor of Massachusetts. What’s more, Mitt has considerable exposure to foreign heads of government. Isn’t he a BFF with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu?

A part of me understands the angst that’s boiling up within the ranks of true-blue Trumpkins.

Mitt could be an asset to the Trump team. Except that he did deliver that blistering — and in my view accurate — critique of the president-elect during the campaign.

Which version of Mitt would Trump hire if he chose him to run the State Department?