Mitt Romney has every right to cloak his personal and professional finances in secrecy — and voters have every right to assume he has something embarrassing to hide. If this seems unfair, Romney has only himself to blame.
Through a series of miscalculations, Romney has managed to turn what should have been a minor hiccup into what may be a defining moment, and not in a good way. Attacks by President Obama’s campaign serve mainly to draw attention to the train wreck. On the Sunday morning talk shows, even Republicans urged Romney to release more tax returns while wondering what secrets he’s trying to keep. And the campaign’s latest attempt to explain how and when Romney left Bain Capital — he’s supposed to have “retired retroactively” at some unspecified date — became an instant punch line. If Romney really does have the power to bend time and space, he might want to retroactively clean up the mess he’s made.
Unreasonable claim
The only reason anyone cares when Romney left Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded and ran, is because Romney made a totally unreasonable claim: When Democrats pointed to outsourcing and job cuts at companies Bain owned or controlled, Romney denied any responsibility since these unfortunate developments took place after he left to run the Winter Olympics in 1999. This was an absurd position to take. Romney has boasted of his prowess at creating jobs by pointing to successful companies in which Bain invested, such as Staples, the office supply chain that went on to expand and hire tens of thousands of employees. But much of this growth took place after 1999. Romney was trying to take credit for post-departure successes but not for failures.
On such shaky ground, Romney planted his flag. He then tried to insist on another ridiculous proposition, which is that he left Bain suddenly and completely in 1999. This cannot possibly be true. Romney was Bain Capital — chairman, chief executive and sole stockholder. There is no way he could have disentangled himself from the firm so abruptly. Indeed, he did not. As late as 2002, Bain’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission list Romney as chairman, chief executive and sole stockholder.