President Obama over the past week has hammered away at Mitt Romney’s business record. It’s like he’s “hellbent on making the word ‘Bain’ synonymous with a source of harm or ruin,” Stephen Colbert said on Monday. Over the weekend, the Obama campaign released a blistering new ad, mocking Romney’s rendition of “America the Beautiful” with a series of scathing headlines. “Mitt was originally on key,” Colbert said. “But he outsourced many of those notes to India.”
The Obama campaign is focusing on when exactly Romney left the private equity firm Bain Capital. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said recently that either Romney is misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people or to the SEC, which would be a felony. Au contraire, Colbert said: “Lying to the SEC isn’t a felony. It’s an entire industry.”
Romney adviser Ed Gillespie tried to clear the whole thing up on Sunday, saying Romney retired from Bain capital “retroactively.” What a novel idea, Colbert thought. “So he wasn’t responsible for firing all of those people whose jobs were outsourced. He was responsible for retroactively not hiring them.”
Watch the video:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Mitt Romney’s Retroactive Retirement from Bain Capital | ||||
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David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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