Second update: FactCheck.org has now published its own follow-up post, which cites Primack’s item and adds this:
Jill E. Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and co-director of the Institute for Law and Economics, said Romney would not have committed a felony by listing himself as managing director [another of the titles that appears on the SEC filings] — even if he now claims he had no role in running the company after February 1999. There is no legal obligation to describe how active one is in the day-to-day management of the company, she said. And just because he held title of managing director doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s responsible for decisions like layoffs or outsourcing.
“If that really mattered to investors, they might consider that a civil liability, but we wouldn’t be talking about a felony,” she said.
Third update: The Huffington Post has a report this evening that offers new evidence challenging Romney’s account. Jason Cherkis and Ryan Grim got a hold of Romney’s testimony from a 2002 hearing in Massachusetts held to determine his residency status as he prepared to run for governor. They write:
Romney has consistently insisted that he was too busy organizing the 2002 Winter Olympics to take part in Bain business between 1999 and that event. But in the testimony, which was provided to The Huffington Post, Romney noted that he regularly traveled back to Massachusetts. “[T]here were a number of social trips and business trips that brought me back to Massachusetts, board meetings, Thanksgiving and so forth,” he said…
Romney testified that he “remained on the board of the Staples Corporation and Marriott International, the Life Like Corporation” at the time.
Yet in the Aug. 12, 2011, federal disclosure form filed as part of his presidential bid, he said, “Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney 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.”
I wish you guys covered Obama so relentlessly.
#1 Posted by Dan b, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 05:26 PM
Meanwhile, there’s a case to be made that Romney bears an ethical responsibility for Bain’s actions during this period, even if he wasn’t directly involved. He was, on paper, in charge of many of Bain’s investments—and being paid for that role.
I see ... so by that logic Obama is responsible for the murders of ICE agents Brian Terry and Jamie Zapata?
Aint consistency just a bitch!
#2 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 05:57 PM
"I wish you guys covered Obama so relentlessly."
Goldman Sachs Candidate-R is more suspect than Goldman Sachs Candidate-D because Candidate-D offers the correct version of pretty things.
#3 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 06:19 PM
"No doubt to some observers, the question of Romney’s responsibility in this larger sense is the only issue that matters, and the factcheckers’ objections seem pedantic. But it’s the job of factcheckers to be pedantic about what politicians are saying, while leaving political debates to the political sphere."
I have to laugh at so much dancing on the head of a pin. My Lord, pedantic doesn't do justice to what Greg Marx and the "fact checkers" are doing on this and other issues. Greg, ask your mother whether she would hold the sole owner, president, CEO, and chairman of the board responsible for what his company did. And Glenn Kessler, Brooks Jackson, Bill Adair, and all the other professional "fact checkers" all should do the same. Please report back to us on what your mothers say.
#4 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 07:50 PM
It's clear that Factcheck is all in for Romney. Not that any of these gimmicky "factchecking" websites have had any credibility in a number of years. The fact is, they are terrified of being criticized by the right, or accused of "liberal bias." It was originally a good idea, gone terribly bad.
Journalists who cite these kinds of websites can be assumed to be too lazy or incapable of checking their own facts.
#5 Posted by James, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 09:16 PM
Romney had 100% control of Bain up until 8/2001 http://t.co/zc5tDOk
Considering that Romney tried to strong arm the Washington Post into changing its page 1 story--which directly contradicted Kessler's "fact checking"-- so it would be read in a more favorable light, it seems to me the smell of desperation is coming from Romney, not Obama.
#6 Posted by Corinne, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 09:18 PM
@Dan b,
In this line of work, we tend to write about what other journalists are writing about. Lately, they're writing a lot about Romney.
@Harris Meyer,
I agree that this sort of back-and-forth can get tiresome. And while I’m not going to call up my mother right now, I, personally, agree based on what I know that Romney bears some responsibility for Bain’s actions in the years shortly after February 1999—not particularly because of the SEC filings, but because he had set that entire operation in motion, and because he continued to profit from it. And also because, in my own personal judgment, had Romney been directly involved during that period, little would have changed about the actions taken by Bain and the companies it controlled. (How blameworthy those actions actually were is whole ’nother debate, which has gotten obscured here.) So I think Romney’s attempts to wash his hands of any responsibility is unpersuasive.
But the Obama campaign didn’t say, “Romney bears some responsibility,” and as I read FactCheck, they didn’t say, “Romney is immune from all criticism, on any grounds, ever, for Bain’s actions after 1999.” Instead, the Obama folks said, “Romney shipped jobs overseas” and the FactCheck folks said, “In the instances you cite, Romney wasn’t involved in making decisions about shipping jobs anywhere, because he wasn’t running the company.” And based on the available evidence, I think FactCheck has the better of that particular dispute. (For what it’s worth, the Washington Post article on outsourcing and Bain that the Obama campaign eagerly circulated contains the phrase, “Romney left Bain Capital in 1999,” and refers to an event in July 1999 as “five months after Romney left Bain.”)
Again—I don’t think the resolution of that dispute is conclusive about the broader political/ethical/moral question of Romney’s responsibility. But I do think the existence of factchecking organizations that will probe such disputes is an interesting—and, so long as they don’t stray beyond their mandate, a useful—development. And when they’re challenged, I think it’s worth taking a closer look to see if they got it right.
@Corinne,
That article doesn't present any new evidence.
#7 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 09:58 PM
HuffPost, on the other hand, has a report out that seems to have some new evidence. See third update above.
#8 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 10:23 PM
We have to consider the actual evidence that is before us, not what isn't and guess what the latter might be.
Mr. Marx's piece erroneously accepts certain hearsay as evidential, specifically certain claims originating from Bain that are favorable to Mr. Romney, and therein Mr. Marx's objectivity is clouded.
Mr. Marx started from the subjective perspective that Mr. Romney was telling the truth and then set out to see if there was evidence to the contrary. That was the wrong approach. He should have set out from the objective perspective that Mr. Romney might be telling the truth or he might not be. From the evidence presented, it is impossible to tell, although the physical evidence suggests he is not.
Mr. Romney could settle this matter by releasing a number of documents, including his tax returns, to provide a clearer picture. Until that time, perhaps Mr. Marx would have been better served to reserve his judgement. He is deciding a matter after seeing only a small fraction of the evidence and, more seriously, became distracted by hearsay. That is careless journalism and, in a courtroom, would be savaged by opposing counsel.
#9 Posted by HG, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 11:31 PM
The whole deal is: is Romney lying about his involvement with Bain after Feb 1999? Documentary proof says yes. Either he committed perjury to the SEC, or he's lied to the voters. One or the other.
Isn't that what Factcheck is supposed to be checking, instead of participating in uncalled-for and unprofessional attacks on the Obama campaign. It has the appearance of Factcheck acting as a surrogate for the Romney campaign.
They have lost credibility over this, and they didn't have much to begin with. Sometimes, yanno, when "both sides" are attacking you, it usually means not that you are "doing something right" but that you are doing a really, really crappy job. That's the case here.
I think it's time we retired this stupid, useless "factchecker" fad. Not only is it utterly useless, not only does it make journos too lazy to check facts on their own, but it actually makes worse what it purports to solve. Let journos and their editors use their own resources to check their own facts, and take responsibility for doing that. And let this dumb "factchecker" genre die on the vine.
#10 Posted by James, CJR on Thu 12 Jul 2012 at 11:58 PM
Greg, I still say your mother could cut through this crap a lot more elegantly than you did in your convoluted response. Pshew. Sometimes too much education can be a bad thing.
#11 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 02:27 AM
I thought I had cut through the crap fairly well in previous threads on this subject.
The point is not "Did Mitt personally oversee and approve of the layoffs, taxpayer pension bailouts, tax deductible debt, fatten dividend returns from soon to be bankrupt enterprises, outsourced and off shored labor, the off shored tax shelters, etc.. during his time at Bain?"
The point is "Do we want a guy connected to that kind of company, coming for that kind of culture, approving policy solutions for US citizens?"
Did we not just have an MBA president and a millionaire dream team cabinet? Is it not public knowledge that Romney's team and policies are both largely borrowed from Bush?
Does the country need more of this?
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 03:53 AM
Lost in this whole debate is a pretty interesting fact. Romney was getting a six-figure income as Boss during the post '99 time. This was over and above any passive gains. Why?
Seriously, if he's not doing any actual work (whatever "actual work" means in the context of a company like Bain), then why tip him out like that? The other income was hugely massive already, so the extra $100k was at best a rounding error on the man's balance sheet. Tax-wise, it's inefficient; he's paying regular iincome rates on it. It just makes work for his accountant.
So why did Bain and Romney mutually agree to pay him what to a normal person would be pretty fine money as a figurehead, just for signing his name to a few SEC documents, if that's all he did?
#13 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 11:40 AM
Romney's story is falling apart, according to his own sworn testimony in June 2002..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/mitt-romney-bain-departure_n_1669006.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=071312&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
#14 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 01:09 PM
Back on the factchecker debate, I don't share the idea that because factcheckers are failiable and, on occasion, hold the finger on the scale for republicans because conservatives are such goddamn liars that to not do so would make their claims of objectivity look bad mathematically speaking, means that fact checking is worthless.
If we go back in time to 1999 when the press just went to war with Al Gore with every right wing tall tale under the sun, because drudge ruled their world and Clinton trashed the place or something, we could have used a press to call out Bush on his budget busting lies instead of a press that lapped up Bush's "fuzzy math" line. We could have used a press that debunked the "Al Gore said,'I invented the Internet' and 'I was the basis of love story'" garbage, because Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd weren't going to do the job on their gossip beats.
The press with flawed fact checkers is bad, the press without without flawed factcheckers and rightwing disinformation unopposed (with the exception of 'hippies' like media matters who no one serious listens to because both sides are liars and drudge rules our world or something) is horrific. We need to remember how bad the press was before factcheckers and audience participation gave us the tools to fight back. One of the reasons I first started coming here back in the campaign desk era was because this place started giving these sins of bad journalism names like 'he said she said' and 'false equivalence' in 2004. Before we couldn't even get a fact check of 'Saddam's yellowcake flying drones and 9-11!!!' For all the serious faults we've come pretty far since then.
#15 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 02:44 PM
Speaking of Al Gore, Somerby has a problem:
http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/nobody-cares-about-mitt-romneys-cartoonishly-evil-tax-proposals
"Then he goes on to make the perfectly sensible point that Romney is such a bad candidate we shouldn't need to resort to this kind of stuff regardless. After all, Romney's tax plan would raise taxes on 18 million working families at the same time that it lowers taxes on millionaires. This is almost cartoonishly ridiculous...
And yet, as near as I can tell, the plain fact is that attacks like this don't seem to work all that well. They aren't useless, but they aren't silver bullets either. They're too wonky. Viewers aren't sure they believe them. It sounds like the usual he-said-she-said nonsense. And anyway, everyone assumes that Republicans aren't really serious about the looniest of the stuff they spout. It's just red meat for the true believers, right?"
Wrong, and it's a failure of the press, who wants a competitive contest for ratings, for not making clear that this republican party is the freaking dark side. That is their culture, and they will reward according to the dictates of their social darwinist ideology:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/opinion/krugman-whos-very-important.html
"O.K., it’s easy to mock these people, but the joke’s really on us. For the “we are V.I.P.” crowd has fully captured the modern Republican Party, to such an extent that leading Republicans consider Mr. Romney’s apparent use of multimillion-dollar offshore accounts to dodge federal taxes not just acceptable but praiseworthy: “It’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally,” declared Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. And there is, of course, a good chance that Republicans will control both Congress and the White House next year.
If that happens, we’ll see a sharp turn toward economic policies based on the proposition that we need to be especially solicitous toward the superrich — I’m sorry, I mean the “job creators.” So it’s important to understand why that’s wrong."
We don't need a professional liquidator to liquidate what's left of the American worker so that his buddies in finance can get bigger tax breaks and paychecks. That is the whole point of talking about Bain, and nit picking the conversation is just a distraction for the major theme.
America needs less Gordon Gekkos, not more in public office.
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 03:20 PM
What's the evidence that he actually ran the Olympics? Do we have any video of him judging figure skating?
#17 Posted by Bob Gardner, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 05:06 PM
You have a point, @Thimbles, about the pre-"fact"checker era. I don't know whether they have helped, or if online participation and better access to news is the answer. The political press fell head-over-heels in love with dubya, and he lied his way right into the presidency. Always, always, holding the Democrats accountable for every obscure phrase they might utter. Three full days on "the private sector is doing fine" but Romney lying on SEC declarations? Get over it. Nothing to see here. (finger wag wag wag. Shoo!)
I'd like to know why the rhetoric police at these "fact"check sites, and Greg Marx for example, haven't yet gotten to their fainting couch over the "liar" ad put out by Romney. I guess it's okay to call the Democratic candidate a liar, but over the top to suggest that Romney might have lied about his participation in Bain Capital during a particularly inconvenient time.
#18 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 05:14 PM
The problem with most reporters, this one included, is they simply don't understand business. That's the problem with the Huffington Post reporters, also. Staples, Marriott International and Life Like Corporation were not "Bain entities". They were independent companies In which Bain had invested-- and at that point they would have been minority investors. "Bain entities" would have been the investment funds, the private equity funds and the management of those funds.
#19 Posted by Brian, New York, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 06:25 PM
Huffington Post:
Mitt Romney's Signature Appears On Bain SEC Filings During Time He Said He Left Bain
Posted: 07/13/2012 4:20 pm Updated: 07/13/2012 5:15 pm
--But in his 2002 disclosure statement, he provided a different answer, listing himself as "Executive" of Bain Capital Inc. and Bain Capital LLC, with a gross income of more than $100,000.
It would be wrong for journalists to support partisan attacks on Romney. The facts either do or do not support his position.
However, I think that reasonable people from either side would agree that his tax returns should be released. I don't see how he can be presented as a serious candidate for President unless he releases them, given the questions.
I would like to have clarity on one point: at the times that he said that he had already left Bain, was he getting paid in any capacity?
We may need to see the tax returns on this point and others.
#20 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 06:48 PM
Everyone in Utah knows he was working 20 hours a day to save the Olympics. Why doesn't anyone talk with Mayor Rocky Anderson. Rocky is not Mormon and he doesn't agree with Romney on anything in politics. But he will swear that Romney was dedicating extremely long hours to save the Olympics.
By the way, Romney didn't take a salary for saving the Olympics. Further, the Salt Lake Olympics ended up with a profit rather than saddling the taxpayers for the next billion years.
#21 Posted by KDL, CJR on Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 07:40 PM
Yep, during the Olympics, Romney was quite a salesman, and nobody sold off the Olympics quite like him:
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/06/business/fi-oly6
Is this what you want as public policy?
Yep, he did sell Rocky Anderson on himself. Rocky believed he was a good, reasonable, open minded leader. That was performance.
http://m.democracynow.org/stories/12418
"AMY GOODMAN: [Y]ou’d be squaring off against a former political backer, in Republican hopeful Mitt Romney. You both worked together on the 2002 Winter Olympics. You recorded then a campaign ad backing Romney’s gubernatorial run in Massachusetts. He returned the favor the following year when you sought re-election as Salt Lake City mayor.
ROCKY ANDERSON: Well, that was that Mitt Romney. It’s a very different Mitt Romney, of course, who’s running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. He’s changed his position on so many issues. You and I have talked about that in the past. I was very fond of Mitt and his wife, and we did great work together through the Olympics. I have alot of regard for the man’s abilities. But you really have to wonder when somebody is willing to change his views on so many things and then pretend as if that didn’t happen, because the fact is, he is—he’s gone far, far to the right on so many of these issues. I mean, Mitt Romney, last time he ran for president, talked about doubling the size of Guantánamo? That is not the Mitt Romney I knew. And then, of course, you get to the issues like choice, stem cell research, rights for gays and lesbians. It’s a completely different Mitt Romney running for president now than ran for the governorship of Massachusetts—"
So who is the real Mitt? The guy who's selling himself as the born again ultra conservative or the liberal forced to dance with an ultra conservative base?
I don't really care since the guy has proven himself a leader in the indebt and liquidate business, but for those who this does matter to, here's a clue:
"AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about the environment. Mitt Romney has taken a fair amount of criticism for an apparent flip-flop on global warming...
ANDERSON: And actually, he did that before, when he was governor. He talked about the dangers of climate change, how he was going to join up with other states in this regional compact and to put in a cap-and-trade system. It was called RGGI. And then, when the rest of the states were ready to go with it, he backed away from it. And I think it was clearly for the basest political kinds of reasons. So he’s doing it again."
This is how that looks to me, he sold himself to the people as a pro-environment, pro-science conservative; he had given his support to the RGGI plan when it was pie in the sky, why would he leave it when it was on the verge of implementation? You do that when you're a conservative who's dancing with a liberal electorate and the dance is about to take you apart from where your true convictions lie. Rocky Anderson believes he saw the true Mitt and that the guy we see now is playing up to radicals. I see a guy who walked away from his cap and trade and denounces his own health care initiatives because he is a radical who was playing up to moderates, up to the point where it matters. Then the gloves come off.
Do you want someone inthe thrall of radicals as your leader again?
#22 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 01:03 AM
Here's a modest suggestion: since we don't have all the facts, the self-appointed "fact-checkers" should pipe down, say we don't have enough facts and render no assessment. How hard is that?
Instead they have turned what should be a simple task on what is true and what isn't into some kind of new theology where simple terms like "sole owner' mean whatever the "fact-checkers"want it to mean to justify they pathological need to justify whatever hasty generalization they initially reached over a murky situation.
#23 Posted by Jon Rockoford, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 12:15 PM
Just adore the "cherry-picking" of so called available information.
And sure, why the hell should he release all that tax info, why my goodness the man says he is straight up doesn't he??
So called "journalism" not being very journalistic...ur doin it wrongz!!
#24 Posted by elftx, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 12:25 PM
A. The fact that Romeny was the CEO, President, Managing Director, and the Sole Sharehoder of Bain Capital and drew a salary of more than 100K per year for a few years after 1999 is INCONTROVERTIBLE.
B. There may be some question about the degree to which he was involved with the decisions that led to outsourcing of the jobs. But that can be said about any CEO of a company.
C., There is no doubt that as the official head of the company holding at least four formal titles, he should be held responsible for what the company did. It is inconceivable from any rational perspective that if he was against outsourcing of the jobs, he did not have sufficient authority or involvement with the company to have nipped any efforts to do so in the bud.
#25 Posted by gregor, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 02:31 PM
Gregor nails it. As someone else said, why are Romney's assertions treated with such credulity, when documents he signed contradict them? (CEO = figurehead is an astonishing violation of common sense, but seemingly effortless for these 'journalists'. It's like arguing with Paterno fans. Evidence is laid on an imbalanced scale).
Think of it this way: claim: Mitt asserts that he wasn't involved in any way with any Bain entities.
Rebuttal: Then what was the $100,000 payment for? And isn't receiving 6 figures from someone "involvement"?
Elites are given presumption, especially by their media clients, that imbalances simple clash like this. That kind of money is nothing for _someone like him_, they say to themselves- thinking how cool it would be to have an elevator for their cars... how liberating it would be to dismiss $100,000 as a rounding error. Adam Smith warned us of the perversion inherent in the gravitas of wealth.
This is a case study.
#26 Posted by eli, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 04:46 PM
Also incontrevertible..
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/the-class-warfare-election/
"So like it or not, we have an election in which one candidate is proposing a redistribution from the top — which is currently paying lower taxes than it has in 80 years — downward, mainly to lower-income workers, while the other is proposing a large redistribution from the poor and the middle class to the top.
So the next time someone tut-tuts about “class warfare”, remember that the class war is already happening, in real policy — with the top .01 percent on offense."
And it looks like kruggie's been seeing some of that Somerby stuff making the rounds (maybe he reads our pathetic comment wars. Could we be becoming the guilty pleasure of the Nobel prize winning pundit? (that's supposed to be Atrios's job) ). Anyways:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/no-bain-no-gain/
"There is, predictably, a mini-backlash against the Obama campaign’s focus on Bain. Some of it is coming from the Very Serious People, who think that we should be discussing their usual preoccupations. But some of it is coming from progressives, some of whom are apparently uncomfortable with the notion of going after Romney the man and wish that the White House would focus solely on Romney’s policy proposals.
This is remarkably naive. I agree that the awfulness of Romney’s policy proposals is the main argument against his candidacy. But the Bain focus isn’t a diversion from that issue, it’s complementary...
Nor, alas, can we rely on the news media to get the essentials of the policy debate across to the public — and not just because so many people get their news in quick snatches via TV. The sad truth is that the cult of balance still rules. If a Republican candidate announced a plan that in effect sells children into indentured servitude, the news reports would be that “Democrats say” that the plan sells children into indentured servitude, with each quote to that effect matched by a quote from a Republican saying the opposite.
Remember, Republicans have already voted for a plan that would convert Medicare into a system of inadequate vouchers bearing no resemblance to the program we currently have — yet
factcheckpolitifact declared Democrats’ claim that this ends Medicare as we know it “lie of the year”."I think factcheck also went that route, if I recall correctly.
#27 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 07:45 PM
Something that isn't getting reported, which is why you'll find many people voting republican in spite of it, is how bad the teabag congress has become.
It's so bad, it's turned Ezra Klein on the 112th congress into Matt Taibbi on the 109th.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/
Unfortunately, because of the 'both sides do it' folks in the press, the democrats are likely to get tarred by the unpopularity of this congress as the republicans.
People? Republicans are the problem. These people you vote for are the problem. If you don't want them to continue making problems(as in no laws passed, wallstreet regulation dismembered, filibuster filibuster filibuster filibuster, plans to start another debt ceiling fight after the Bush tax cuts are extended, and being bad people who represent you, don't vote for them.
Of course that is an action based on knowledge and journalism doesn't seem to impart that too often.
Let's try reporting the antics of republican radicals as being the dumb assholery that it is. 33 attempts fo repeal health care? Really? There's nothing better to do these days?
#28 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 08:18 PM
Jay Rosen let's off a salvo.
http://pressthink.org/2012/07/if-mitt-romney-were-running-a-post-truth-campaign-would-the-political-press-report-it/
"[E]ven though we have a political press that believes itself to be a savvy judge of campaign strategy, here is one that will probably go unnamed and un-described because (…and this may be the cleverest part) a post-truth campaign for president falls into the category of too big to tell.
Meaning: feels too partisan for the officially unaligned. Exposes the press to criticism in too clear a fashion. Messes with the “both sides do it”/we’re impartial narrative that political journalists have mastered: and deeply believe in. Romney will be fact checked, his campaign will push back from time to time, the fact checkers will argue among themselves, and the post-truth premise will sneak into common practice without penalty or recognition, even though there is nothing covert about it."
And on another note:
"Three full days on "the private sector is doing fine" but Romney lying on SEC declarations? Get over it. Nothing to see here. (finger wag wag wag. Shoo!)"
Try this example on for size:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.ca/2012/07/tale-of-two-scandals-dcjohnson.html
Clinton's 100,000 on cattle futures == BIG DRAMA
Romney's 100 million in an IRA == wha? Don't bother me. I'm resting. Soo tired from Clinton scandals *yawn*.
#29 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 14 Jul 2012 at 09:07 PM
When someone is CEO, chairman of the board and owner of a company, he is legally responsible for the actions of the company, even if he has delegated management responsibility to others. This would certainly hold for civil litigation; whether it held in a criminal case would depend on specific facts as to the CEO/chairman's amount of knowledge of the company's activities and his own intent, among other things. In some instances, being the formal chief executive of a company but having absolutely no knowledge of its questionable doings would actually be legally detrimental, i.e. it could be seen as evidence of gross negligence. I am actually at a loss, therefore, trying to see the argument that ethical/political responsibilities are more lax than legal ones. If Bain engaged in, say, a tort of some kind and was sued, the CEO, chairman and owner would almost certainly (and rightly) be named as a defendant, in that it would be virtually impossible for the company to act without the authorization of its chief executive and owner (even if it were very general authorization). The main way in which the CEO/chairman/owner might avoid liability for the company's actions (and be dropped from the suit) would be to show that lower company officials had acted in violation of the company's policies. I don't see anyone saying that the executives who directly operated Bain while Romney was in Olympic-land were off the reservation, doing things the company's internal regulations prohibited. So I guess my bottom line is this: If there's an essentially iron-clad argument that Mitt Romney would be legally responsible for Bain's activities during the time he was CEO/chairman/owner, why are reporter-factcheckers twisting themselves into pretzels trying to say he had no moral responsibility? There is a logical disconnect here that has nothing to do with politics. If being CEO, chairman and owner of a company doesn't make you responsible for its actions, what does?
#30 Posted by John Mecklin, CJR on Sun 15 Jul 2012 at 05:02 PM
In other news, it's funny how the Boston Globe is going forward with punching reporting on Romney's Bain record, and yet their Elizabeth Warren coverage is kind of laughably in the tank for Brown.
Charley Pierce one described it as a dynamic like this:
"The problem for Warren is that her campaign apparently was either unaware of this dynamic, or believed out of a profound sense of naivete that the "scandal" would sink of its own weight, that the Boston Globe, which has been running scared of offending Scott Brown ever since McDreamy got elected, never would dream of following the lead of the Boston Herald.. But the two newspapers are joined in a kind of symmetry that gives this story its legs — the Herald's shamelessly in the tank for Brown while the Globe is utterly terrified of being accused of being in the tank for Warren."
David Roberts (from the Rosen link) also describes this dynamic (using a quote from John Holbo) and how it manifests politically:
http://grist.org/article/2010-03-30-post-truth-politics/
"Over time, both parties will push positive proposals/legislation. Quite obviously, the Bipartisan Party will be at a tactical disadvantage, due to its lax discipline. Less obviously, it will have an ongoing optics problem. All the proposals of the Partisan Party will be bipartisan. That is, a few members of the other party will, predictably, peel off and cross the aisle to stand with the Partisans. None of the proposals of the Bipartisan Party, on the other hand, will ever be bipartisan. No Partisan will ever support a Bipartisan measure. In fact, all proposals of the Bipartisan party will face bipartisan opposition — as a few Bipartisans trudge across the aisle (there are always a few!) to stand with the Partisans. Result: the Partisan party, thanks to its unremitting opposition to bipartisanship, will be able to present itself as the party of bipartisanship, and be able to critique the Bipartisan Party, with considerable force and conviction, as the hypocritically hyperpartisan party of pure partisanship."
The partisans win the day because the non-partisans are terribly afraid of appearing partisan and thus truth gets sacrificed for appearance's benefit. (fact-checkers take note)
Is that an excuse to publish this drivel? (from June 28th):
http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/06/28/elizabeth-warren-agrees-radio-debate-urging-scott-brown-accept-regional-debates/MAK2U6MDRMxOjUXwbSCKRJ/story.html
"Warren refused to debate Brown on the radio Wednesday night after he rejected a TV debate proposed by Victoria Reggie Kennedy"
"Brown has lambasted Warren for not accepting the two additional radio debates he did, saying she was trying to “duck” him after clamoring for the meetings."
Why would Warren be "ducking" these radio debates? Because "Chicken Mc Dreamy" Scott Brown would not debate Warren unless it was hosted and mediated by conservative radio host, Dan Rea.
These mimbo conservatives can't seem to debate in open forums on open terms. Bush vs Kerry? Bush vs Gore? Brown vs Warren is following in those footsteps where the conservative wants to rig the rules and refs and then claim "why isn't the democrat showing up?" Maybe it's a problem for conservatives with names starting with the letter 'b'.
But why wasn't the Boston Globe reporter not making this Brown 'refusal to box unless the ref gets to punch too' aspect clear, and why oh why would you end with a spokesperson for the Brown campaign?
Seriously Glen Johnson, I want to know what's your angle on the Warren campaign. Are you scared of appearances, a fan of Brown, or just anti-Warren
#31 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 15 Jul 2012 at 05:02 PM
Seems to be that you're being way to indulgent of the so called fact checkers.
They are clearly making a judgement to side with Romney's story when actually they just don't know what the facts are. They should just say-- can't take a side on this one based on what they can substantiate. They should point out the inconsistency inherent in Romney's statements even though they don't necessarily validate the accusations against him.
I think this is one of those-- needing to side with Romney cause they have way too many falsehoods coming from the GOP and want to be thought of as balanced. Outrageous lack of courage -if you ask me.
#32 Posted by Eclectic Obsvr, CJR on Sun 15 Jul 2012 at 05:11 PM
To tie it back to Romney, once upon a time Glen Johnson confronted spin and lies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yx4gjcab4U
(I love around the 2:50 mark where the response to "You lied about lobbyists being part of your campaign." is "Listen to my words, alright?" and "You should be more professional and less argumentative.")
That was some real journalism and fact checking. There's something wrong with how we use the word 'professional' if people define it to mean "stop being emotional and argumentative when I'm lying to you."
So seriously, what's happening to the Globe's coverage with Scott Brown?
#33 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 15 Jul 2012 at 05:16 PM
After Romney claims he left Bain in 1999 to run the Winter Olympics, he maintained a management role by making the decision at Bain to ______________________.
When any of you screwy leftists can fill in the blank, get back to us.
Until then... Keep your Chittum 5000 Black Helicopters in standby mode, OK?
Meanwhile... On the subject of FEDERAL FELONIES....
Perhaps one of you "professional journalist" types can tell us why Obama's admitted felonious abuse of cocaine doesn't merit criminal investigation...
HUH?
#34 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 08:36 AM
Answer Padi? Doesn't matter. Bain's LBO business was always bad; always about reducing wages, workers, and outsourcing; always about sticking debt on companies' balance sheets; always about avoiding taxes; always about collecting excessive management fees and dividends while the enterprise bled. You guys want to frame it so that, "No, only after 1999 did Bain offshore and Romney was only the majority owner and shareholder by then. He wasn't in charge of Bain's vampire activities, he only profited from them," but that's stupid. The sins of Bain against the electorate were many before 1999 and those sins paid him awful well. If he was a big enough man to accept the financial rewards for unpopular actions and avoid paying his share of their social costs by avoiding taxes, then he should be a big enough man to accept the political liabilities. I remember a press that took after a president for near a decade over a small real estate deal gone bad. If Mitt can't handle his record during the campaign without crumbling, what should make people think he can handle the country when the details of 100 million dollar whitewaters surface.
The guy couldn't even be truthful about simple facts like the lobbyists within his campaign or his stance on global warming. Why should he be put UN a position of trust so he can bring his outsource, indebt, collect management fees and dividends approach to government?
______________________. I'm sure you fraud apologists and professional liars can find something to scrawl in there. Good luck selling it though.
Meanwhile:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/krugman-policy-and-the-personal.html
"Perhaps in a better world we could count on the news media to sort through the conflicting claims. In this world, however, most voters get their news from short snippets on TV, which almost never contain substantive policy analysis. The print media do offer analysis pieces — but these pieces, out of a desire to seem “balanced,” all too often simply repeat the he-said-she-said of political speeches. Trust me: you will see very few news analyses saying that Mr. Romney proposes huge tax cuts for the rich, with no plausible offset other than big benefit cuts for everyone else — even though this is the simple truth. Instead, you will see pieces reporting that “Democrats say” that this is what Mr. Romney proposes, matched with dueling quotes from Republican sources.
So how can the Obama campaign cut through this political and media fog? By talking about Mr. Romney’s personal history, and the way that history resonates with the realities of his pro-rich, anti-middle-class policy proposals.
Thus the entirely true charge that Mr. Romney wants to slash historically low tax rates on the rich even further dovetails perfectly with his own record of extraordinary tax avoidance — so extraordinary that he’s evidently afraid to let voters see his tax returns from before 2010. The equally true charge that he’s pushing policies that would benefit the rich at the expense of ordinary working Americans meshes with Bain’s record of earning big profits even when workers suffered — a record so stark that Mr. Romney is attempting to distance himself from part of it by insisting that he had nothing to do with Bain’s operations after 1999, even though the company continued to list him as C.E.O. and sole owner until 2002. And so on."
In the past we waited for the press to cover policy informatively and accurately. We waited in vain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/01/opinion/reckonings-bait-and-switch.html
Not going to happen again.
#35 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 10:46 AM
Like I said, doesn't matter:
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/romney-s-bain-yielded-private-gains-socialized-losses.html
"What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.
What’s less clear is how his skills are relevant to the job of overseeing the U.S. economy, strengthening competitiveness and looking out for the welfare of the general public, especially the middle class.
Thanks to leverage, 10 of roughly 67 major deals by Bain Capital during Romney’s watch produced about 70 percent of the firm’s profits. Four of those 10 deals, as well as others, later wound up in bankruptcy. It’s worth examining some of them to understand Romney’s investment style at Bain Capital."
Read on.
#36 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 02:37 PM
Thimbles...
You have at least one thing in common with Obama. You haven't run a business in your life and you haven't got the first clue about it.
Romney knows business and you don't.
That's just how it is.
When Obama came here to Virginia spewing his class warfare rhetoric and said "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" he is displaying a honest and profound ignorance of business.
Anybody who's actually run a business knows that Obama is full of crap. A successful business is the result of personal passion, effort and risk by an entrepreneur or a group of entrepreneurs. It is not the result of public infrastructure, even if it exploits the infrastructure. You can change the workers.. You can change the equipment.. And you can change the infrastructure, and a business can adapt, compete, survive and even thrive as long as its entrepreneurial core remains.
But if you lose the vision and passion, the business is doomed.
Indeed, precisely the opposite of Obama's ignorant rant is true - businesses made our infrastructure. The internet doesn't exist because Dept. of Defense bureaucrats etched circuit boards or wrote programs. It exists because the Dept. of Defense cut checks to private businesses that did these things.
The Saturn V rockets weren't designed or assembled by Gubmint employees. You won't see any Dept of Transportation GS-13's building any bridges or paving any roads. The National Power Grid isn't manned by Gubmint linemen.
Indeed the Gubmint did nothing but hamper the internet and digital communications for years. The internet only exploded and freed itself from its antiquated Arpanet roots when it was opened to commercial use by private enterprise.
The simple truth of the matter is that our country is being run by a guy who never cut a paycheck in his life. A guy who never ran a damned thing before he became President of the United States of America. And his ignorance of business is evident every single time he talks about it.
#37 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 07:01 PM
"You have at least one thing in common with Obama. You haven't run a business in your life and you haven't got the first clue about it."
Wrong.
"Anybody who's actually run a business knows that Obama is full of crap. A successful business is the result of personal passion, effort and risk by an entrepreneur or a group of entrepreneurs."
A successful business is a result of meeting a need (demand) in a way that meets the customer's desire for quality, affordability, and availability. If the price charged for meeting that need exceeds your cost and a sufficient amount of customers have their needs met by your services, then you can book a profit and claim success.
Entrepreneurs with inflated egos and crappy delivery do not claim success. This appears to be the type of idiot mainstream economics and MBA programs mass produce. They are terrible.
But why are they terrible? Because they learned management in America under the exploitation model, not in Asia where American idiots kicked their liberal new dealers to exile.
One of those exiles was a man named Edwards Deming His ideas built the foundation of the world's second largest economy by getting the focus of management off of profits and onto product (which forces one to think of process).
Peter Drucker was another visionary that was taken more seriously in Asia than in America.
Entrepreneurs who are focused on extracting profits from ideas instead of the product of ideas forget there are three constituencies which a capable business leader must take into consideration.
1. Customers - you cannot have a successful business without paying customers. The product must meet their needs, must anticipate their needs if it is to capitalize on demand. A product cannot just meet the customer's need in order to be successful, it must meet the desired characteristics of any product. Quality: can you trust the product and the servicer.
Availability: can the customer get the product. If not then the customer will seek other products and you will slowly lose your market.
Affordability: do the customers value your product more than it will cost them. If not then the customer will seek cheaper replacements or just do without.
2. Labor - in the past, this was more of an issue than it is now due to a mechanization of labor, but at some point enterprises require intelligent agents to oversee and execute activities which contribute to your product's process. In America, due to the entrepreneur entitlement issue, the relationship between labor and business has been adversarial. Unfortunately this causes a misalignment within the enterprise as employees and executives fight for their own interests above the interests of the enterprise. When you align the enterprise so that it cares for the interests and concerns of the employees (medical insurance, company subsidized housing, local school investments, steady wages & pensions), then the employees are often prepared to sacrifice their interests for the benefit of the company (sometimes extremely so. In Japan there is a disease called Karōshi - death from overworking. You also see this in the US military). Cont..
#38 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 11:10 PM
The energy usually expended on conflict becomes energy expended on improving the production process. Furthermore, companies who take care of their employees' interests are taking care of the consumer market's interests as well. People who work, pay taxes, and can maintain a decent lifestyle without relying on credit can shop and invest in their family's skill development through education. Good workers for good companies produce good economies with good public services. Hostile workers who compete for benefits from greedy companies produce unstable and depressed economies.
3. the LAST and LEAST important - the shareholder / owner. These are the people who have invested in an enterprise and merit a reward, but rewards must be commensurate with the long term health of the enterprise. If the enterprise breaks its commitments to and makes an unfriendly environment for labor and customers in order to pay out owners, shareholders, and management, then they are sabotaging the future of the enterprise for their bankbook now. When you take care of customer and labor, when you focus on the process of production, the gains for management, shareholder, and owner take care of themselves. It is unfortunate that modern management theory holds to the idea that the risk of an investor is somehow special and merits special reward.
CUSTOMER COMES FIRST. They put the wealth directly into your enterprise. When it comes to an enterprise's future NO ONE ELSE MATTERS MORE.
LABOR COMES SECOND. Your employee risks their time, their security, their effort to participate in the process of the enterprise. SCREW THEM AND YOU SCREW YOUR PROCESS. Quality and availability fall and affordability becomes less important to customers and your brand becomes associated with the negative connotations of the word 'cheap'.
The capital gains folks deserve reward to the degree they preserve the profitability of the process of product through customer and labor satisfaction. If they should be rewarded for building a business, then they should build the goddamn business, not extract the wealth from its carcass and leave the rest for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the flies.
It's easy to take wealth, wall street bankers have been doing this for decades now and it's hallowed out the country. Japanese bankers did it during the late eighties (because the Americans were so slick and modern - they had to pick up the disease) and they tanked their economy for a decade with a duel stock bubble, real estate bubble pop.
Building wealth takes talent, vision, and sacrifice. You guys have lost the art of sacrifice, the art of providing benefits to anyone but number 1. In the long run, no enterprise you shape will maintain its value because you strive to impart no benefit to no one else but numero uno, people learn quickly not to depend on you.
And when no one depends on you, no one needs you. And when no one needs you in business, you're dead.
That is the essential problem with American capitalism these days. It is unintentionally committing suicide so it can cut a dividend check and boost an executive bonus.
You are men of vision, but your vision is economic nihilism.
#39 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 11:40 PM
"The internet doesn't exist because Dept. of Defense bureaucrats etched circuit boards or wrote programs. It exists because the Dept. of Defense cut checks to private businesses that did these things."
You mean public universities, but whatever, right?
"The Saturn V rockets weren't designed or assembled by Gubmint employees."
Actually,
government nazi employees, but whatever, right?
"And his ignorance of business is evident every single time he talks about it."
And thank god, because the last business leader president was a total bust and many of the current crop of business leaders are a bunch of crooks and frauds.
Politics isn't a business (though campaign finance is doing its best to turn it into one). In America, it is the rule of the people as expressed by the will of the people. High finance business people deserve to have a say in politics relative to their demographic : 1 percent.
They get much more than that under Obama, but it's never enough unless there's a kissing of the feet for the privilege of being their bad bet backstop.
The people of business have no right to stand in judge of the people's business. Fix your own affairs, you cockroaches, then give us a lecture sometime. And remember, in a just land the lecture would be from behind the bars of a cell. Humility isn't so much to ask for, is it?
#40 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 17 Jul 2012 at 12:19 AM
"When Obama came here to Virginia spewing his class warfare rhetoric and said "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" he is displaying a honest and profound ignorance of business.
Anybody who's actually run a business knows that Obama is full of crap. A successful business is the result of personal passion, effort and risk by an entrepreneur or a group of entrepreneurs. It is not the result of public infrastructure, even if it exploits the infrastructure."
Heya Hiya Johnny!
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/07/17/unreal-americans/
From the TPM links within:
"Mitt Romney and an array of surrogates are mocking President Obama for remarks he made defending public investments in infrastructure, accusing him of arrogantly claiming credit for small businesses’ hard work and risk-taking. But it takes an Olympic-level gymnastic leap to make the attack work as advertised."
"“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” Sununu said later...
Asked by a reporter about his initial comment, Sununu said, “the American formula for creating business is not to have the government create business,” but to “create a climate in which entrepreneurs could thrive. … If I didn’t give all that detail, I apologize.”
Now if you were generous you could say that he believes that the role of government should be to "create a climate in which entrepreneurs" can make their 1% level incomes.
Of course when we talk about all the foreign places the 'ignorant America-lacking president' grew up in, that interpretation becomes exceedingly generous.
#41 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 17 Jul 2012 at 05:04 PM