Romney's retroactive retirement -- with pay!

Many consider former President Bill Clinton the Michael Jordan of politics -- peerless. Clinton could connect, charm, press flesh (don't go there), and frame an issue like no other.

Well, if Clinton is the quintessential communicator, Mitt Romney has to be the anti-communicator.

Mitt Romney's Bain Capital conundrum 


Mitt is filthy rich and wants all of us to know why: He is a great businessman -- his words -- and he insists that as a hugely successful businessman, he is the man to fix America's economic woes. This is his campaign mantra -- nada mas.

Hence, Mitt dared us to check out his business resume.

We did and discovered that Bain Capital (Mitt's company) is not part of the American economic solution -- quite the contrary -- Bain is a major part of what is broken in our economy.

• BC looted vulnerable companies, drove up their debt-to-profit ratio, laid off workers and gave themselves huge bonus whether the companies survived or went belly-up.
• BC was a pioneer in out-sourcing American jobs abroad.

To etch-a-sketch away his BC career drag, Mitt insisted that he had nothing to do with post 1999 Bain -- when BC was going gangster on American jobs outsourcing:

“I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain Capital after February of 1999.”

“I left in February of 1999 to go out and run the Olympics.”

“I went out and did that full-time, relinquished all management authority and role in Bain Capital after February of 1999.”

“But the truth is that I left any role at Bain Capital in February of ’99.”

“And I had no role whatsoever in managing Bain Capital after February of 1999.”

And with those words, the man that created BC has stepped into his own BS:

Mitt Romney is under fire after new reports suggest he stayed at Bain Capital longer than he claimed. 

The Boston Globe, citing SEC documents and financial filings with the state of Massachusetts reported yesterday that Romney stayed on at Bain years past his official departure date of February 1999. (The paper refused a request from the campaign to issue a correction yesterday afternoon.) 

And the Huffington Post obtained sworn testimony Romney gave to a June 2002 hearing determining whether he had sufficient residency status to run for governor in Massachusetts. In it, he says he “remained on the board” of a company Bain was heavily invested in, which would contradict earlier statements.

If Romney did indeed stay at Bain longer than he’s claimed, it’s potentially more than just a political problem, but a criminal one as well, a top ethics watchdog in Washington tells Salon. Romney filedtwo personal financial disclosure forms with the Office of Government Ethics in 2007 and 2001 relating to his presidential runs stating explicitly that he “has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,” since 1999.

“I think if Mitt Romney was aware that he was still the head of Bain, and if he filled out a form that failed to include that information, that’s potentially criminal. Intentionally providing inaccurate information can be a crime,” Melanie Sloan, the Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) told Salon.

Specially, it would violate the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, 18 USC § 1001, a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison. “I can’t really imagine why he would have done this. But it does seem like a big problem. And it does seem like — how would he not know?” Sloan said. “Filing accurate financial disclosure forms is not optional. They’re not suggestions.” source

Hold on. Stop the presses. 

Mr Severely Conservative,  aka The Anti-communicator has a campaign surrogate expertlessly (my lexicon contribution) explain: 

Romney Campaign Adviser Ed Gillespie: Mitt Romney Wasn’t Responsible for Bain, (He was)“Retroactively Resigned” source

Wow, we really look that dumb to team Romney...