Hard to argue with that. Romney has plenty of non-conservative history to attack. Why Bain Capital? It is the left's bogeyman. Gingrich appears to have lost his conservative focus. And now this is looking like he's a warm up act for Mitt, to get him ready for the Obama barrage.
Actuallly, I believe it was Machiavelli who said keep your friends close & your enemies closer.
GREAT points by Malkin, as usual. bttt
Malkin: “It’s one thing to carefully dissect Romney’s investments, as the Wall Street Journal did -—http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204331304577140850713493694.html -—, and weigh his wins against his losses. ....It’s quite another to shamelessly disparage those who work in private equities as immoral corporate raiders and avaricious job-killers...”
But didn’t Bain deal in “junk bonds”?
If so, here’s the contrast:
Nov 24, 2011
Emmett Tyrrell
Forstmann, the Big-Hearted Prodigy
http://townhall.com/columnists/emmetttyrrell/2011/11/24/forstmann,_the_big-hearted_prodigy/page/full/
WASHINGTON On Sunday morning we lost a big-hearted prodigy: Teddy Forstmann, financier, political player, philanthropist (especially for the young and those in education) and a bit of an adventurer. I know I accompanied him on some and feared for my life. He was a member of the Board of Directors of The American Spectator in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Teddy died of brain cancer, and we shall miss him.
[........]
Teddy would not use junk bonds. That was, he would say, “funny money. It’s wampum.” Over lunch, he would try to explain it to me. He was famous for coining the phrase “barbarians at the gate.” It served as the title for Bryan Burrough and John Helyar’s best-seller about the $25 billion deal for RJR Nabisco, which Forstmann bid on but lost to private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
Teddy had an eye for “the deal” but was also extremely well-read, athletic and civilized. He was a conservative too. He donated millions to the Republican Party, though his real interest was in education and the young. He teamed up with John T. Walton, son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, and donated millions to the Children’s Scholarship Fund. He was an advocate of voucher programs and charter schools.
Teddy also had a sense of humor. He created a rivalry with Henry Kravis from the battle for RJR Nabisco. Teddy prided himself on using subordinated debt. KKR used junk debt. Teddy lost, but in “Barbarians at the Gate,” Burrough and Helyar testify that Teddy “fervently believed junk bonds had perverted not only the LBO industry but Wall Street itself.” .....
[........]
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Bain drip drip drip
Posted by William A. Jacobson Friday, January 6, 2012 at 4:34pm
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/01/bain-drip-drip-drip/
It’s so frustrating, the failure of conservative media and Republican campaigns to vet Mitt Romney’s Bain days.
Instead of hiring cartoonists to turn Newt into Marvin the Martian, National Review should have been digging deep into the public filings, court filings, and the financial history of the companies Bain acquired and sold. You better believe there isn’t a court document or SEC filing which the Obama campaign hasn’t digitized and analyzed.
Maybe there is nothing damaging, but my gut tells me otherwise. That Romney inexplicably refuses to release his tax returns should have leading conservative pundits screaming warnings at the tops of their lungs; instead we get psycho-babble comparing Newt to Ahab seeking the Great White Mitt.
In Bain drip drip I noted a NY Times article about Romney’s post-Bain deal participation.
Now Reuters has a damaging story about how one of the companies bought by Bain left the feds to deal with underfunded pensions, Special report: Romney’s steel skeleton in the Bain closet:
The young men in business suits, gingerly picking their way among the millwrights, machinists and pipefitters at Kansas City’s Worldwide Grinding Systems steel mill….
Apparently they liked what they saw. Soon after, in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.
It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they’d been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month.
What’s more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company’s underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.
Not illegal, part of that “creative destruction” thing. I get it. And I’m sure there is plenty of blame to go around. My concern is we’re only hearing about it in drips. You can be sure Team Obama is holding the good stuff back.
[....huge snip.....]
But then the combination of sweet and salty came together in our flavors enjoyed and has become just another consumer craving.