It reminds me of the song "Sunday Will Never Be the Same." Even pundits on the Right know that their candidate is a disaster, and for some reason the Romney camp still can't get all their excuses straight. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and yet we can't look away. And I have to admit that I'm enjoying every minute of it, LOL.
I especially love the new "retroactively retired" meme started by Ed Gillespie. If you want to know what I mean, check out my post on Snark Amendment
. . . feel the embers die . . .
Romney Campaign Surrogate Ed Gillespie on CNN: "He took a leave of absence and in fact ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to February of 1999."
Republican George Will on ABC's This Week: Mitt Romney's losing it, and he's losing in a big way. If something is going to come out like this, get it out in a hurry. I do not know why, given that Mr. Romney knew the day that McCain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for President again, that he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest. He's done nothing illegal, nothing unseemly, nothing improper, but lots that's impolitic. And he's now in the politics business.
. . . The Republicans have now nominated someone from the financial sector at a time when the financial sector has a bad odor. Hardly a day goes by - the LIBOR scandal, TARP . . . all of this conditions the atmosphere in which this is occurring.
Karl Rove Via Daily Caller
“Two different attacks — one is he didn’t take a leave of absence to run the Olympics Committee and run Bain,” Rove said. “Total baloney — even The Washington Post said this was baloney. The fact of the matter is, look, when Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple and took a leave of absence for medical reasons, nobody continued to say, ‘Well you are the guy who made the day-to-day decisions.’ Romney was busy running the Olympics and they were ready for this particular attack. I agree with Joe. They were not ready for the regular attack on the six companies that Obama raised [saying] these companies all outsource jobs. It took them a week to respond and say four of these companies didn’t outsource jobs, move a single job overseas. They created jobs at home and two companies were brought by Bain after Romney left.”
Rove added that, if the Obama campaign continues this line of attack, it could ultimately hurt the president.
“But the fact of the matter is, if the president makes the charge … [the] outrageous charge that Mitt Romney is guilty of felonious activity and committed a felony — that is it a big mistake. Remember who is up for grabs in this election: independent voters,” Rove said. “They were drawn to Obama in 2008 because he was going to change politics and would raise and elevate the discourse. This is gutter politics of the worst Chicago sort.”
Chicago mayor and Obama campaign surrogate Rahm Emanuel: Stephanie Cutter cited the law, and it's very clear. Either the filing with the SEC is accurate and his personal financial disclosure is not honest. Or that's honest and the SEC isn't. But both can't be accurate depicting a time when he said he was doing one thing or another.
George Stephanopoulos: He says it was just a formality during the time he was untangling his involvement with Bain.
Rahm Emanuel: George, he has made Bain Capital his calling-card for the Presidency. And when you look at it, it doesn't measure up to what he claims. And number two, on both of those filings, one is accurate and one isn't. And they both have consequences when one is not accurate. And that is what she (Cutter) stated.
And the other thing is, give it up about Stephanie. Don't worry about that. What are you going to do when the Chinese leader says something to you or Putin says something to you? Are you gonna whine as your way? You cannot do that? As Mitt Romney said once to his own colleagues, stop whining! I'd give him his own advice. Stop whining and if you want to claim Bain Capital as your calling card to the White House then defend what happened to Bain Capital. And what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were actually cut and eliminated, and those companies that went into bankruptcy.
. . .
Stephanopoulos: The campaign has been pushing hard for Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns. He says the public has everything they need to know to understand his finances, and we do know that Mitt Romney made a lot of money, we know he paid a relatively low tax rate. What more will the returns tell us that we don't know?
Rahm Emanuel: . . . Mitt Romnney's own father said you shouldn't release one year, and in my view he's released one year. . . . transparency and what that says. Okay, to the McCain campaign he released 23 years. And he's telling the American People, okay, I'm not going to give you what I gave John McCain's people in 2008. And when he gave them 23 years, McCain's people looked at it and said let's go with Sarah Palin. So whatever's in there is far worse than just the first year.
The Romney campaign isn't stupid. They've decided it's better to get attacked on lack of transparency, lack of accountability to the American people versus telling you what's in those taxes. They're not enjoying this.
Stephanopoulos: So what do you think is in there?
Rahm Emanuel: He can clear this up, just make it public. . . . he paid 14%, just about half of what a middle-class family pays. Second, we've learned in just one year about The Caymans, about the Bahamas, about Luxembourg, and about Switzerland, all about where his different accounts are. His tax filing looks more like the Olympic village than like a middle-class family. Third, the next four years the President of the United States is going to have tax reform. And you're going to have to debate it with Congress and shape it. And unless you have his taxes, and I've seen this in the Oval Office, George, there's going to be times when a President has to make trade-offs and choices, and will it be the middle class family trying to send their kid to college, or will it be to save the loophole in the Cayman Islands? . . .
He has fully used what is legal in the tax code, and that's the problem with the tax code.
From Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer on CBS
Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter said Romney's departure date matters, because his experience at Bain is "his sole rationale for being president."
"If you're signing an SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] document with your own signature that you're the president, C.E.O., chairman of the board and 100 percent owner of a company, in what world are you living in that you're not in charge?" Cutter said Sunday on "Face the Nation."
"If he wasn't the head of it, who was?" she asked.
Romney adviser Kevin Madden said what Romney has also said: that he left the company in 1999.
"The reason there is a document in 2002 that had his signature is, during that transition from 1999 to 2002 where there was transfer of ownership to the new partners of Bain, that there was a duty to sign those documents. But every single - even a bipartisan commission indicated Governor Romney left Bain in 1999," Madden told host Bob Schieffer. "This has been established, yet the Obama campaign, the president himself, continued to pursue these inaccurate statements, and I think it's to the detriment of the public right now."
"It doesn't make any difference that we're arguing the semantics of when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital," Cutter said. "He has put for his sole rationale being president his experience at Bain Capital, and that every decision he'll make as president should be seen through the lens of his experience with Bain Capital, and we're just getting a taste of that, whether it's investing in companies . . . and those investments happened before 1999 when Mitt Romney was, in his words, 'in charge' that became the pioneers in outsourcing, or whether it's investing in companies, loading them up with [debt] and pushing them into bankruptcy and yet you walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars but you're leaving workers without jobs, pensions, health care and companies decimated."
Cutter said Romney's responsibilities at Bain - and when those responsibilities began and ended - are legitimate discussions to have particularly, she said, because the presumptive GOP nominee "put it on the table.
"And the simple point is, if you're telling the SEC you're in charge but you're telling the American people that you bear no responsibility, one of those things is not true," she added.
Referring to Cutter's comment made to reporters last week in which she said an executive misrepresenting his role on SEC documents is a felony, Madden said her suggestion that Romney committed a felony is "troubling."
"First, I think it is very troubling that the president would direct this campaign to label someone like Governor Romney, who is a very good and honorable man, as a felon," Madden said.
Cutter said the Obama campaign is not going to apologize for the comment.
"Just a few months ago in the primary, Mitt Romney said to his opponents, who were crushing him at the time, 'Stop whining.' And that's a good message for the Romney campaign," Cutter said. "Instead of whining about what the Obama campaign is saying, just put the facts out there and let people decide, rather than trying to hide them.
"The tax returns is exactly just about that," Cutter said, pointing to Romney's refusal to release tax returns from before 2010. "If he didn't gain any tax advantages from having investments in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and a Swiss bank account, then show us. Show the American people. What are you hiding?"
Madden said Romney has gone "above and beyond" by releasing his 2010 returns and 2011 estimated taxes.
"Governor Romney has dutifully and according to the law filed all of his financial disclosure requirements. He's gone above the law," he said.
Cutter, however, said Romney's refusal to release his tax returns is an issue of transparency. "This discussion is about transparency and showing the American people what your perspective is and what judgments you're going to make as president," she said.
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