Another from Andy Tobias

Joe, Jeff, Mitt, and Matt Published on January 16, 2012

MORNING JOE ENTIRELY MISSES THE POINT

Friday, Joe Scarborough announced that private equity guys like Mitt Romney can’t possibly make money hurting employees and investors; they make money only by making companies a success, not bankrupting them.  What could be more obvious?  He asserted this over and over and none of his colleagues challenged him.  But of course, there IS a way for this to happen: the private equity guys come in, fire people, load the company with debt, pay themselves huge dividends from that debt . . . and then, staggering under the weight of that debt when the next downturn comes, the company can’t make it, shuts its doors putting the rest of its employees out of work, and leaves the lenders with worthless paper.  As noted Friday (thanks to Andrew Sullivan), none other than the right-leaning New York Post gave several specific Bain Capital examples (see the yellow highlights).

JEFF ANSWERED THE DOOR . . .

Jeff Cox:  “Your repeated message that most working people would be better represented by Democrats is merely stating the obvious.”

☞  What I love about Jeff’s message is his email “signature.” 

(You know: that line you can have automatically appended to all your messages.  One of you – Mark Lefler – makes me smile every time I see his: “I am nobody.  Nobody is perfect.  Therefore, I am perfect!”  And Fred Stanback has long used a striking Thomas Edison quote: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy.  What a source of power!  I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”)

Here’s Jeff’s signature appendage:

            I answered the door to see a woman garbed in campaign paraphernalia for the incumbent, Republican, U.S. representative.  I was not intending to be rude, but just giving an opening for conversation.  “Ok, why should a working man vote Republican?” I asked.  I caught her by surprise.

            “I don't know,” she said.

            “Well, I don't know either.”  She took back the pamphlet she had offered, and I shut the door.

“I LIKE  TO FIRE PEOPLE” – TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT

Tom Mathies:  “One of your recent columns criticized Romney’s campaign for quoting President Obama out of context.  This DNC blog and video quote Romney out of context.  There are so many solid reasons to reelect President Obama, I fear out-of-context quotes could actually weaken our case.”

☞  Fair point.  Romney did it first and a lot more blatantly, but I’m not comfortable with anythingbeing taken out of context.

That said, Matt Miller has an interesting take on this incident here in the Washington Post:

A fairminded citizen might feel a pang of sympathy for a politician [Romney] who has to watch every word, lest it be taken out of context and turned against him.  That’s why we get such robotic candidates and officials, after all.

But such sympathy dries up when it turns out that Romney’s actual meaning involves the Big Republican Lie on health care.

. . . Romney’s dishonesty here is breathtaking. I used to think Republicans had taken chutzpah to unsurpassable new heights when they refused on principle to lift the debt ceiling last summer – despite having passed the Paul Ryan budget, which added more than $5 trillion in debt over the next decade.

But Romney may have topped that . . .

It’s worth reading the whole thing to see why.