❖ Obama and top campaign bundler Jonathan Lavine from Bain Capital.
The Obama campaign blamed Governor Mitt Romney for the demise of GST Steel company in a video they released in May. The plant closed in 2001. Mitt left Bain in 1999.
For some reason the Obama camp forgot to mention this… Obama’s top bundler Jonathan Lavine was in charge of Bain during the BST layoffs. Chuck Slowe reported:
Blaming Governor Romney for any issues surrounding the failure of GST is wrong and it is a blatant lie. Mitt Romney had been long gone when the company started to fail and subsequently closed it doors. When are the President and his campaign hacks going to get the story correct? When are they going to get back to their economy and its dreadful condition? Mr. President, you can run but you cannot hide.
It turns out that Jonathan Lavine, current Obama bundler, was actually in charge, at Bain, during that period, when the layoffs occurred. Oops, that isn’t right, is it? Yes, that story is the one that needs to be reported on. Sorry Mr. President, your lies are just getting to be more than many of us are able to handle.
And, Jonathan Lavine is not your average Obama Bain donor. Lavine is one of Barack Obama’s top bundlers.ABC reported:
One should take note that the Washington Post endorsed Obama last election and will probably support him this time. Via Dennis Prager:
Millions of dollars of attack ads by the Obama campaign are hanging in the balance. If Romney left Bain in February 1999, when he departed to run the Olympics, then a number of business deals that went sour (such as KB Toys) can’t be counted as part of Romney’s tenure. If he actually left in 2002, as the Obama campaign alleges, then those deals are fair game.
We have looked at this issue before, back in January, and thought we had settled it.
But now the Boston Globe has raised the issue again. The story seems to hinge on a quote from a former Securities and Exchange Commission member, which would have more credibility if the Globe had disclosed she was a regular contributor to Democrats. (Interestingly, “The Real Romney,” a book on the former Massachusetts governor, by Boston Globe reporters, states clearly that he left Bain when he went to run the Olympics and details the turmoil that ensued when he suddenly quit, nearly breaking up the partnership)
We’re considering whether to once again take a deeper look at this, though it really feels like Groundhog Day again. There appears to be some confusion about how partnerships are structured and managed, or what SEC documents mean. (Just because you are listed as an owner of shares does not mean you have a managerial role.)
To accept some of the claims, one would have to believe that Romney, with the advice of his lawyers, lied on government documents and committed a criminal offense. Moreover, you would have to assume he willingly gave up his share to a few years of retirement earnings — potentially worth millions of dollars — so he could say his retirement started in 1999.
UPDATE: Fortune obtained the offering documents for a Bain Capital Fund circulating in June 2000, as well as a fund in 2001. None of the documents show that Romney was listed as being among the “key investment professionals.” As Fortune put it, “the contemporaneous Bain documents show that Romney was indeed telling the truth about no longer having operational input at Bain — which, one should note, is different from no longer having legal or financial ties to the firm.”
For interested readers, below is a summary of what we, FactCheck.org and Fortune magazine have previously concluded.
[….]
If the Obama campaign were correct, Romney would be guilty of a federal felony by certifying on federal financial disclosure forms that he left active management of Bain Capital in February 1999….
And after reviewing evidence cited by the Obama campaign, we reaffirm our conclusion that Romney left the helm of Bain Capital when he took a leave of absence in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics – as he has said repeatedly — and never returned to active management. The Obama campaign’s recent ads thus mislead when they point to investments made by Bain, as well as management decisions made by companies in which Bain invested, after that time.
What does the Obama campaign have in rebuttal? Very little, and none of it convincing in our judgment.
…From January to April 2004, the ABC and CBS evening news shows only mentioned Kerry’s wealth once each. And NBC didn’t mention Kerry’s finances or his wife’s wealth at all. Those same three networks have discussed Romney’s wealth a total of 27 times during the same time period in 2012. That’s more than 13 times more than the coverage given Kerry’s wealth (27 stories to 2 stories)…
(GP) Governor Mitt Romney spoke today at the Liberty University commencement. The Republican nominee for president focused largely on a message of faith, family, hard work and service, but he also addressed the emerging same-sex marriage issue by saying “marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.”
NewsBusters has this update to the “Mitt Romney Tortures Gay Kids for Fun… Released Alongside Obama’s ‘Evolution’ Announcement”
Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton touted the Post’s Romney-haircut “scoop” as a “deeply reported story” that “holds up to scrutiny.” But the family of the haircut victims told ABC it was “factually inaccurate” and it shouldn’t be used as a political football. Pexton said nonsense: the Post has received “no specific complaint of inaccuracy.”
Perhaps more shocking is that the Post shamelessly admits they timed this story precisely to echo on the day after President Obama’s big pro-gay announcement. They actually waited a day long than planned to let Obama have the front page to himself when he was being “historic.” Pexton’s only nod to the right: he panned the sneaky update that’s still not a “correction”:
Stu White was portrayed in the original story as being “disturbed” by the alleged haircut incident for decades, and then it was amended to a couple of weeks. That’s embarrassing, but not to the shameless Post:
Kevin Merida, national editor of The Post, said on Friday that “We should have updated it with a note.” I agree with Merida. I would have used strike-through text online to make it clear to readers that that part of the online story was changed. I think that’s just the better part of candor. There is now an editor’s note at the very bottom of the story. The Post is not calling it a correction. I think it is a correction, but not germane to the central theme of the story.
Here’s how Pexton dismissed the family’s complaint:
“Mr. Lauber’s family said in a statement that they were ‘aggrieved that John would be used to further a political agenda,’ Parker wrote in her story. In a tweet she also wrote that the family said “ ‘The portrayal of John is factually incorrect,’ but they would not elaborate on how it was inaccurate.”
Jason Horowitz talked to all three of John Lauber’s sisters for the story and carefully explained to them what the story was about, Merida said.
The Post has received no specific complaint of inaccuracy from the Lauber family, Merida said. “We stand by the story. It’s a full portrait. It’s the story of Mitt Romney’s years at Cranbrook.”
This is certainly not a “full portrait.” It’s a hit piece that’s helped liberal journalists, talkers, and bloggers to assault Romney as someone who “tortured gay kids” for fun. If in 2004, the Post had done a long story on how John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals, they wouldn’t be able to tell liberals with a straight face that it was a “full portrait.” ….
