"Romney contended that he had 'no role' at Bain after 1999 when some of its companies went bankrupt, shipped jobs overseas and fired workers. He remained the firm’s chairman of the board, C.E.O., president and only stockholder until 2002. Other than that, he had nothing to do with the place."
Compare Dowd's denunciation with that of Wapo's Eugene Robinson, who wrote yesterday (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-romneys-problem-of-his-own-making/2012/07/16/gJQAKjBepW_story.html):
"The only reason anyone cares when Romney left Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded and ran, is because Romney made a totally unreasonable claim: When Democrats pointed to outsourcing and job cuts at companies Bain owned or controlled, Romney denied any responsibility since these unfortunate developments took place after he left to run the Winter Olympics in 1999.
. . . .
He then tried to insist on another ridiculous proposition, which is that he left Bain suddenly and completely in 1999. This cannot possibly be true. Romney was Bain Capital — chairman, chief executive and sole stockholder. There is no way he could have disentangled himself from the firm so abruptly."
Do Dowd and Robinson sound similar?
And on Monday, fellow New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, declared that Obama shouldn't "run a campaign based on . . . substance and leave Mr. Romney’s personal history alone" inasmuch as we can't "count on the news media to sort through the conflicting claims" regarding Romney's past (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/paul-krugman-policy-and-personal.html).
However, WAPO's Glenn Kessler, in a thorough and detailed "Fact Checker" article entitled "Do Bain SEC documents suggest Mitt Romney is a criminal?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/do-bain-sec-documents-suggest-mitt-romney-is-a-criminal/2012/07/12/gJQAlyPpgW_blog.html#pagebreak), derails the allegations of Dowd, Robinson and Krugman:
"As we wrote yesterday, we are standing with our assessment that Mitt Romney left the helm of Bain Capital in 1999, when he departed to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. The date is important because some questionable investments by Bain took place between 1999 and 2002, when he ran for governor. But a Boston Globe article on Thursday raised new questions about that timeline, citing SEC filings, and the Obama campaign jumped to take advantage of it.
. . . .
Fortune magazine on Thursday reported that it had obtained the offering documents for Bain Capital funds circulating in 2000 and 2001. None of the documents show that Romney was listed as being among the 'key investment professionals' who would manage the money. As Fortune put it, 'the contemporaneous Bain documents show that Romney was indeed telling the truth about no longer having operational input at Bain — which, one should note, is different from no longer having legal or financial ties to the firm.'
. . . .
The Obama campaign is blowing smoke here."
Although "tempted" to award the Obama campaign's contentions four pinochios, Kessler and his team decided to give the Democrats "only" three.
Of course, there is still the matter of Romney's tax returns, and therefore, I would like to propose a swap: Romney's tax returns in exchange for the videotape, held in a Los Angeles Times safe, of Obama toasting Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi in 2003 (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/time-to-release-obamas-2003-rashid.html).
However, more than anything, I would prefer to see concrete proposals from both candidates regarding how they intend to prevent the US economy from disintegrating.
Given his failure since 2009 to improve the economy, Obama would surely prefer that the electorate focus on Romney's past (Bain, teenage bullying, etc.) and ignore his own past foibles (Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, etc.), but what is Bain in 1999 compared with America's current economic pain?
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