Mitt Romney, George W. Bush share post-endorsement phone call

By Hunter  on Fri May 18, 2012    Daily Kos Original

The other day George W. Bush, or as Mitt Romney calls him, He Who Must Not Be Named, gave Mitt a rousing endorsement in the form of a four-word "I'm for Mitt Romney" muttered from behind closing elevator doors.

Given that, I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for this one:

Bush and Romney spoke with each other after the former president offered his fleeting support for the Republican candidate in an elevator this week, a person on Romney’s campaign tells ABC News.

The Romney aide wouldn’t disclose details of the call and wouldn’t say if Romney thanked Bush for his endorsement.

That's some top-secret phone calling right there. He won't even say whether Mitt thanked Bush?

"Hi George. Look, I'm pretty sure we talked about this, and I thought I was pretty clear on how you needed to not say anything for the next six months."

"Sorry, Mitt. It just slipped out. Want me to take it back?"

"Jeez ... no, no, that'd probably look worse. All right, we'll just go with it. But now please, please promise me you won't say anything supportive of me from now on? I mean Christ, George, your favorability ratings are still three points behind leprosy."

"Yeah, but I think I'm gonna be vindicated anytime now. You seen how much brush I've been clearing lately? I fuckin' hate brush. Little thorny terrorists, all of them."

"Fine, George, whatever. Listen, I have to go. Just please, take a vow of silence or something. Now's not the time."

Yeah, I like that version pretty well. The other version would be that Bush and Mitt actually get along fine and have a lot of the same ideas, on things like tax cuts, hurting poor people and not really giving a flying damn about any of that foreign policy stuff unless they're forced to by outside events, and that Mitt's actually sucked in a lot of old Bush advisers because hey, their advice all worked out great the first time around, but that version's just too scary to contemplate.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,George Bush,Tax Cuts,The 1%,Foreign Policy,Current Events

Slapping Down Mitt Romney's Job Creation Claims, Yet Again

By Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor on Thu May 17, 2012

Early in the primaries, Mitt Romney insisted he had created 100,000 jobs through his work at Bain Capital, but faced with stiff challenges to that number from his Republican primary rivals and the media, his job creation claims fell precipitously. Now, Romney is back to claiming 100,000 jobs created, fact-checkers around the nation are back to saying, wearily, "No, Mitt. You didn't. That's a lie."

Bloomberg's latest fact-check reiterates the key point that Bain Capital does not track how many jobs it creates or eliminates, for the simple reason that it doesn't give a damn. Bain is about creating more wealth for its already wealthy investors. Jobs, layoffs—workers' lives—are a largely irrelevant byproduct of that in the Bain worldview. So Romney's claims about the jobs created by his Bain work are slapdash, post-hoc inventions.

Furthermore, office supply retailer Staples accounts for 90,000 of the jobs Romney says he created, but Bain's investment in Staples was just $2 million, "a minuscule amount when compared to the firms other investments." And:

[E]ven at those investments made while Romney was at the firm, a number of people at companies bought by Bain told Bloomberg News that he had little involvement in the day-to-day operations of the companies. Rather, Romney left the oversight and daily management to his associates and executives running the businesses.

So Romney wasn't deeply involved in oversight of companies Bain invested in in general, but we're to credit him for every job created at a company in which Bain invested a relatively small amount of money. Got that?

As Jed Lewison has pointed out, these days, Romney only makes the 100,000 jobs claim in front of a friendly audience, but he does keep making it no matter how often it's debunked. As if we're as forgetful as he wants (and needs) us to be.

Tags: Mitt Romney, Bain Capitol, Jobs, Politics, Current Events

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Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Bain Capital,Jobs,2012 Elections,Politics,Current Events,Republicans