Romney's Bain

Over the weekend the following statements were said in regards to Mitt Romney's tenure at the venture capital firm, Bain Capital:

“Now, I have no doubt Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips — whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company, Bain Capital, of all the jobs that they killed.”

“If you are a victim of Bain capital’s downsizing, it’s the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain — because he caused it.” 

“We want everyday normal people to run for office...[n]ot just millionaires.”

Think this came from DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or David Axelrod?  No, this came from Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich.  You would expect to hear that kind of language from Democrats.

Here is Rush today:

I don't understand why the Occupy Wall Street crowd is protesting Newt. They're singing from the same hymnal on this. This is right out of the New York Times. Newt is parroting what the New York Times is writing about Romney on this: Six rich guys taking over...Folks, it is clear here (to me, anyway) what's really going on. This is not a campaign for the presidency. That's not what this is anymore. This is payback time. This is Newt. It drove him nuts that series of ads the Romney super PAC ran against him in Iowa, and this is the result of it. That's why we are where we are. (interruption) No, no. I'm not making excuses, don't misunderstand. I'm just explaining. I'm not defending anybody. I just think this is very unfortunate. This is... (sigh) This is not the kind of stuff you want said by Republicans. I mean, even the establishment Republicans don't go after conservatives this way.

Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard has a very good and measured take on this whole thing here:

Post 2008, capitalism needs its strong defenders—but its defenders need also to be its constructive critics. The Tea Party was right. What's needed is a critique of Big Government above all, but also of Big Business and Big Finance and Big Labor (and Big Education and Big Media and all the rest)—and especially a critique of all those occasions when one or more of these institutions conspire against the common good. What's needed is a willingness to put Main Street (at least slightly) ahead of Wall Street, and a reform agenda for capitalism that strengthens it, alongside an even more dramatic reform agenda for government that limits it. 

Bain Capital shouldn’t be demonized. It may not even deserve to be criticized. But in laying out a way forward, conservatives might remember that Bain Capital isn’t capitalism, that capitalism by itself isn’t freedom, and that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the Gospel of Wealth.

Capitalism must be veiwed within the moral universe that the Founders took for granted in creating this country.  It is not a wholesale theory that explains everything.  Without moral knowledge and ethics, it can lead to disastrous consequences.

This is very important:

On the other [hand], Mitt Romney’s claim throughout his campaign that his private sector experience almost uniquely qualifies him to be president is also silly. Does he really think that having done well in private equity, venture capital, and business consulting—or even in the private sector more broadly—is a self-evident qualification for public office? One assumes Mitt Romney would agree that Chris Christie is a better chief executive of New Jersey than Jon Corzine, and that Rudy Giuliani was a better mayor of New York than Mike Bloomberg. But Romney’s biography looks a lot more like Bloomberg's or Corzine's (leaving aside Corzine's recent misadventures) than like that of Giuliani (pre-mayoralty) or Christie. Past business success does not guarantee performance in public office. Indeed, Romney sometimes seems to go so far as to suggest that succeeding in the private sector is intrinsically more admirable than, e.g., serving as a teacher or a soldier or even in Congress. This is not a sensible proposition, or a defensible one.