This was read by Rush Limbaugh on air today.
Romney likens work at Bain Capital to Obama’s auto industry bailout:
“In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business,” Romney said Wednesday on CBS.
President Obama has publicly touted his plan to “retool and restructure” the auto companies as “an investment in American workers.” Romney was strongly opposed to the auto bailouts, but on Wednesday likened the president’s strategy to his own.
“We also had the occasion to do things that are tough to try and save a business,” he said.
Video at the link.
So in order to defend his record at Bain, Romney is forced to defend the government takeover of GM and Chrysler and the process by which the companies were downsized.
Let me preview Obama’s argument in defense of how he “rescued” the auto industry:
Why, Mitt said just the other day that what we did with GM and Chrysler was no different than what he did at Bain. But it was different. Mitt got rich off of it, I didn’t.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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It’s like Michelle Malkin likes to say, the problem with the Republican candidates is that they keep talking about what they will do when they get to Washington when we are looking for candidates who can be relied on to UNDO what has already been done. Romney is just telling us that what is wrong with big government is not the bigness but that it needs to be managed better and he’s the guy to do it.
“Mitt got rich off of it, I didn’t.”
your union thug buddies got “rich” baracky
prof you seem to be one of the few sane conservatives left standing. preach it bro
Unforced error by Mitt. That was dumb.
Better response: “GM and Chrysler would have been better served if our system had been allowed to work without the meddling of the Obama administration. We’d have more saved jobs and saved dealerships if the bankruptcy courts and equity firms had been allowed to do their jobs without interference. In my time at Bain I never saw a situation in which government intervention made things better.”
Agreed. At least he followed it up with saying that the sharp knives would be focused on a bloated government.[Link: http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_this_morning/video/2185782991/romney-all-guns-blazing-in-my-direction- ] The Anybody But Romney Republicans need to accelerate their 7 stages of grief and do all they can to make sure the general election is a referendum on Obama and that Obama loses. Prof. Jacobson’s fatalism on how “the party is lost” manifests one of the grief stages. Does anyone think conservatives were doing cartwheels (or claiming the party was lost) when Warren Harding was nominated on the 10th ballot in 1920?
“With all I’ve been hearing about Romney’s record, I’ve seen remarkably little on specifics.”
Then you haven’t been looking. It’s not hard to find. Here’s a hint… try looking into his record as Governor of Mass and what he did there. Specifically look at his record at job creation and his record on taxation of businesses.
Also take a look at what he was saying with such sincerity when he was running for the Senate versus what he says with such sincerity now.
Mitt’s getting cocky. This won’t end well.
He’s behaving like Obama 2008. Heck, he’s almost behaving like Obama 2009-10 (“I won.” and “The election’s over.”)
It gets worse.
Romney, March 2009, on TARP:
” “The TARP program, while not transparent and not having been used as wisely it should have been, was nevertheless necessary to keep banks from collapsing in a cascade of failures. You cannot have a free economy and free market if there is not a financial system. … The TARP program was designed to keep the financial system going, to keep money circulating in the economy, without which the entire economy stops and you would really have an economic collapse.”
Romney, December 2009, on TARP:
“And by the way, TARP has served its purpose. TARP ought to be ended. We’ve got hundreds of billions of dollars there that is being used as a slush fund by Secretary (Timothy) Geithner and the Obama administration. Stop the TARP recklessness at this point and get ourselves back to creating jobs by encouraging businesses to grow, expand their capital expenditures and hire.”
Romney, January 2010, on TARP:
“That was an investment made to try and keep a collapse of our entire financial system from occurring. We were on a precipice, which, now we can sit back and say it wasn’t so scary. Well, frankly, it was a very scary time for a lot of people, and that’s something which was resolved.”
_______________________________
Romney wholly approved of TARP and opposed only its administration by the Obama administration.
Add support for federal government bailouts to Obamacare as yet another issue on which Romney has no credibility and cannot oppose Obama without looking like an idiot.
There has long been a process for dealing with insolvent banks and auto companies, it’s called bankruptcy. The virtue of bankruptcy is that problems are identified, defined, addressed and resolved. That is what “saving” banks and other companies should mean, not turning into perpetual zombies hopelessly dependent on government largesse and protection.
Romney, January 2009:
“I think there is need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion in net worth. That translates into about $400 billion a year less spending that they’ll be doing, and that’s net of additional government programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance. And government can help make that up in a very difficult time. And that’s one of the reasons why I think a stimulus program is needed.”
Romney: Left of Obama on most issues, but the “True Conservative” in the race (per our dear Establishment leaders)
I’m not going to whack anyone for supporting TARP in 2008. After all, Dubya put it forward, and the situation WAS dire.
It’s what Obama did to TARP in 2009 that is the issue: he treated it as a piggybank to use in forwarding his agenda.
Bailing out the financial situation is one of those “hold your nose” moments, and to that extent TARP did (sorta) work. It’s the mis-use of TARP that’s the problem, and that’s where Mitt (if he is as smart as he thinks he is) has to direct his fire.
Gingrich on TARP (Human Events, October 1, 2008)
Excerpt: “Taking these two steps – replacing Secretary Paulson and suspending the mark-to-market rule – are absolutely necessary right now to give Congress the breathing room to develop a plan to replace the Paulson Plan and to re-establish trust with the American people.
The Bush Administration has…badly damaged the cause of conservatism. …now we have Secretary Paulson at the Treasury, whose intransigence during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has convinced Americans that Republicans can’t be trusted with their money.
It’s a tragic and very expensive legacy. No conservative and no Republican should doubt how much it has hurt our cause and our party.”
“I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”
– George W. Bush, December 16, 2008 on CNN
No, what Romney was referring to was his call well before O’bammy took office that the only rational path for GM was bankruptcy.
That is excactly what the the administration later forced but it became much more costly due to the nearly two year delay.
Romney never favored a government bail out…
Except TARP.
and the Stimulus
RE: Auto bailouts…..
Market readjustments are a necessary, Darwinian aspect of the free market system. For the federal government to tinker with the sickest in the herd of major American corporations is to weaken the entire herd by allowing poor business practices to not only survive, but to profit, to ‘breed’, as it were, and pass on the weak characteristics.
Professor,
While you’re having your teeth drilled, I’m calling my doctor to see if he’ll double my dose of Lexapro, and maybe add a Prozac chaser. Reality is sucking more and more.
From the Winning Our Future Website page featuring the film — BINGO:
Mitt Romney and his cronies pioneered ‘deindustrialization,’ a process by which they searched out vulnerable companies, took them over, LOADED THEM WITH DEBT, and collected obscene fees while doing so. He sent jobs overseas or killed them altogether, and then picked apart the remains – including pension funds – before the companies went bankrupt.
Romney will say and be anything to get what he wants. (Has this man ever stood for any position, or supported any cause at all?)
Proof positive of what I’ve been saying about Romney from the beginning. It’s not about Bain so much as the “narrative” — not only Romney’s ineptness at driving it (he can’t, never has) but his constant and defensive adjustments to the narratives driven by others (i.e., his pathetic, defensive simulations of a “narrative”). This man has absolutely zero ability to define and drive compelling and epochal American narratives that win elections. He’s a vision-less human calculator — his whole life and career has been about studying odds, margins, risk analyses. Has he ever once looked up to see the horizon? Thus his strategy in the primaries is no-risk, ball-control, go-for-the-field goal.
But look what happens when an obvious, entirely predictable glitch in the risk-aversion game-plan arises — a narrative he should have seen coming from a hunmdred miles away. It’s not just how he’s responding to it (pathetically) but why he is in a defensive position at all. So now he’s conflating himself with Obama, and being dragged down into the greasy gearworks of minutiae no one will ever be able to understand with the net effect of moral equivalence with a Marxist. I imagine some of those brilliant Ivy League minds in the Romney camp thought this was clever.
It’s pathetic, but worse, it was totally avoidable from the beginning. Expect this pattern to play out again and again. Why would it stop? It’s who this loser is.
Wait a minute. It’s now OK to attack Romney on BAIN? This is so confusing. May Rush read http://www.PolitiJim.com today after @BoSnerdley got embarrassed on my timeline..
I agree with both Pasadena Phil and newrouter, but would add several Things. How much of Romney’s own money was committed in Bain’s investment I don’t know, but there was some. Both he and Bain’s other investors had skin in the game, when things didn’t work out they lost and most certainly paid themselves first when they could. Obama has no skin in the game. Not one red cent. No one at GM has been fired. They still make cars no one wants and the “old GM” assets still languish. Chrysler’s investors were told to take a hike. They didn’t even get a voice in the restructuring. Warren Buffet’s lending money to some of the biggest, healthiest corporations in the country at 10% with a guarantee they’ll buy back the notes and warrants at full price. What a risk taker he is.
I’m certain some of your readers will post better information with more specific details, but I’ll take a Bain, a capitalist, free market risk taker to Washington’s crony capitalists and fat cats any day of the week, particularly those like Obama who have absolutely no skin in the game. None. (Rembemer, this is a guy who couldn’t buy a house without assistance from a crook). This should be an easy argument to structure for Romney’s staff. My real worry is that they won’t be able to do it. This is the difference between him and Gingrich; Gingrich just understands it; he’d proably tell his staff what to say. I don’t think Romney could do that.
“Obama has no skin in the game. Not one red cent.”
Except for that whole re-election thing. Oh, and all the money being funneled to all his donors and buddies…
“No one at GM has been fired.”
Except for the CEO. Oh, and those 47,000 GM laid off (and 5 plants they closed) days after getting the money… Oh, and of course anyone who worked for Chrysler…
The 47,000? You’re paying for them and will be until the last one dies. They’re not going anywhere because they don’t have to. The plants and old assets just sit there, unused, just on the books, unpaid for, like the 47,000, just taking up space like the “clunkers” we all bought thousands of which now sit in an old stadium…taking up space. (We bought the replacement stadium too, the old one is someone elses’ problem, ours).
Isolating GM from the market place for years, generations, was a gigantic mistake. When it imply sank, it was propped up and everyone thinks it’s wonderful. The cost of saving it has still not been paid and it’s still being propped up; it’s way down the list of vehicles anyone wants; it lies about paying back TARP funds and sales (forcing vehicles on dealers); they still can’t compete, and still, no one is being fired. Everyone loves them, but the same thing happening to the big banks on Wall Street – bailouts, etc. -and everyone hates them. Suckers.
Let me preview Obama’s argument in defense of how he “rescued” the auto industry: Why, Mitt said just the other day that what we did with GM and Chrysler was no different than what he did at Bain. But it was different. Mitt got rich off of it, I didn’t.
Agree, Mitt’s response should be “I did it with my own money [or at least with private money], I didn’t pick the pocket of every citizen of the US to do it.”
I cringed when I first heard that this morning.
Methinks now would be a good time for Sarah Palin to come out and endorse someone.
So true, Jabster. Endorse and campaign! Think of the followers.
if she doesnt do so soon it will be too late to make difference
Prof: No matter how much you point out that Mitt is evil, and a poor choice, that doesn’t make Newt a GOOD choice.
Newt is ALSO evil, and a poor chose. As is Santorum, and Perry. And Huntsman.
America is a giant train, speeding 100 miles per how toward a brick wall.
Obama wants to go faster. Mitt wants to slow us to 50 MPH. You seem to think Newt will slow us to less than 50 MPH. So what? The resulting crash will still destroy all we value.
ONLY Ron Paul wants to stop the train, and turn it around.
Anyone who thinks American can survive by simply hitting the wall more slowly, is a fool, and part of the problem.
Anyone who thinks we can have a government that actually leaves us alone domestically, while occupying most of the world, killing foreigners and installing doomed puppets, is also a fool.
I want a government that minds it’s own business. Domestically, and internationally. Just like the founders. I’ll support nothing else.
The Republicans who consider that “kooky” are a much a part of the problem is the lefties who think they have a right to my money.
Scott, you may be on to something. Even the Iranians love Ron Paul, so he can’t be all bad(sarc). http://www.aim.org/special-report/tehran-tv-loves-ron-paul/
🙂
Since every other candidate wants to attack them, I’m not surprised. Have you noticed their scientists keep dying? That’s us. We are already at war with them.
And the drones we keep flying over THEIR country? Would we tolerate another country flying drones over US?
You ignore the fact that Netanyahu also supports Ron Paul, as does the CIA analyst in charge of tracking down Bin Laden.
War is just a tool to take away our liberty at home (political prisoners have been a key feature of every American war, from the Civil War on. Wilson imprison THOUSANDS, and FDR Hundreds of Thousands. How many of us will Obama imprison, once we are at war with Iran?)
Wise up, smarty pants.
Are you referring to the speech Netanyahu made that Paul repeatedly takes out of context, that Israel already is a democracy that does not need U.S. nation-building (going to a completely unrelated point)?
Now wait a minute.
The CIA is the focus of evil in our age, right? They sneak into countries illegally, interferes with their internal processes and start imperialist wars. Heck, it even overthrows “legitimate” governments and assassinates “leaders.”
But here you’re saying an evil CIA warlord endorses Ron Paul?
There’s that second face showing up again.
As always, you think playing “gotcha” is the same as being smart. It just shows you’re not smart.
I said A Single CIA analyst (NOT the CIA, obiously), who was In Charge of hunting Bin Laden, say Paul is right about the motivations of AlQueda, and has endorsed Ron Paul and his foreign Policy.
That policy you say is Kookie.
Nobody likes a smart ass — you don’t have any real friends, do you . . .
Ron Paul would stop the train — and leave it parked, unsecured, waiting to be attacked and looted.
No.
He believes in a department of DEFENSE, not our current Department of Offense.
We would be safer by not meddling in the affairs of others.
Stop thinking spending MY money to kill foreigners makes You safer. It does not.
What evidence supports the hypothesis that peaceful non-meddling countries are never attacked? (If it’s wrong, it presents an incredibly dangerous risk)
I believe there is no example in history of a peaceful, non-meddling SUPERPOWER, with 20% of world GDP, and 48% of ALL planetary military spending, ever being attacked. I think we can risk it.
Whereas all Meddling superpower empires end up bankrupt, and dismantled. That’s where we are heading, full speed.
Bring the troops home, stop meddling, dismantle our police state (see NDAA), enjoy liberty.
Lead by example. It worked for 120 years . . .
That’s an internally inconsistent hypothetical that does not exist, and does not provide any basis for your stated beliefs.
It COULD exist, if we would come home and stop meddling. Who, exactly, do you believe would attack us at that point?
Neither does it answer your actual question, j.
If I didn’t know any better (and I might not), I’d swear scottinwisconsin (if that really is his name) is an Obama agitroll.
I don’t think there’s an example of a superpower in general that doesn’t meddle, mainly because meddling is a part of that whole “superpower” definition.
In the short run we would probably be safer if we weren’t involved in so many conflicts. However, in the long run, we would be much less safe. The world doesn’t let a country stay out of conflicts, eventually it’ll drag you in kicking and screaming. You’ll be trading with Country A, who’s at war with Group Z, and Group Z will eventually attack you to either cripple your ability to supply Country A or to get you to stop trading. And you’ll have to make a choice, give in to force and stop trading, which will only encourage others to attack you too, or go to war with Group Z. The only reasonable option seems war, but Country C and Country D, where Group Z resides, doesn’t want to let you in. Now you’ve got a new choice.
It gets a lot more complex from here, way too complex for Paul’s simplistic worldview to handle.
Every empire has fools like you, who defend trying to run the world as necessary “in the long run.” While it destroys the nation in the short run. And robs it of freedom and wealth.
You’re simply wrong. You think you’re just deeper, or more insightful than Dr Paul. You’re not. You’re just another fool, accepting the party line that allows the government to turn America into a police state — for our long run good, of course.
Republicans passed the NDAA, which allows the president to indefinitely confine, without due process. Republicans like YOU.
You think Obama is the problem. It’s actually “conservatives” like you, who have sold out the founders for the glory of running the world, like it’s your favorite football team.
As the police state moves into your anus, try not to clench.
Romney puts on his Harvard IVY Crimson when he talks to Charlie Rose. He has no idea about American Politics and does not realize that ‘takeover’ of GM was socialist and Bain was captialist. He just sees one Harvard boy against another.
RomneyFeller is actually a chameleon at heart. Put him in CPAC speech and he morphs to conservative soundbites. Wait and see this happen in Feb. Put him in with Bill O’Reilly and he is the peoples man, Put him in with Charlie Rose and the French wine and Cheese and IVY snickers will emerge.
Romney’s “bitter clingers” moment?
Veleta. Spanish ‘weather vane, capricious person.’ He has a highly structured, rigid, and rule-driven Mormon theology. He is/was a Mormon bishop who could visit people to deliver the message on what would be tolerated by his church, or they would be excommunicated. Yet in the real world, Romney seemingly doesn’t have a core, unless “whatever works” at the moment are the abiding rules.
Say what is expedient.
Wait, is there someone in the GOP race who, if nominated, would run against the auto bailouts? Newt would do that, even though the bailouts are water under the bridge and enormously popular with voters in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin?
Huh? More lying for the Lord? Mitt Romney Criticizes Auto Bailout.
The great thing about Mitt is that if you don’t like what he’s saying, just wait 5 minutes. He’ll get around to what he thinks you want to hear eventually.
Does anyone have link to Romney’s as governor refering to any cronyism there? While I think questioning his time at Bain is justified and necessary, I think looking at his record as Governor would be a better use of time.
Things to look at are des his claims of job creation hold up during his time in Mass? Did he use funny math or Federal money to pad his budget? Did any of his friends profit from Government largess when Romney was in office? Those are the kinds of things that will take him down a peg.
With all I’ve been hearing about Romney’s record, I’ve seen remarkably little on specifics.
Well when he left the gov’ship, he wiped all the hard drives that might have had some of those records. Clever, huh?
“Well when he left the gov’ship, he wiped all the hard drives that might have had some of those records. Clever, huh?”
So basically he’s Nixon, but with better hair.
It is NOT better hair.
Link?
Well do you consider being ranked 47th in the nation in job creation as good? Perhaps the fact that taxes and fees were increased on businesses whilst Mitt was the Gov had something to do with that?
“Mitt got rich off of it, I didn’t.”
More like the union leaders got rich off it.
[…] Friends: The results from New Hampshire were coming in, and I was following them via one of my favorite pundits on-line as the Young Prince was watching the newest Star Trek movie. Assuming that you are regular […]
This is why you vet candidates. To see how they handle the pressure, and see what they are really made of. In this case, he shows once again a backbone made of silly putty.
How revealing is it that this guy thinks the GM bailout is the same as what he did? Keynesian clown, big government fake conservative problem. Nothing has changed with Mitt.
How many people will blame Newt for creating this error? His defenders don’t get it. But Romney created it himself, and it also reveals his inability to articulate and defend capitalism.
Which supports the Professor’s post that Republicans Should Thank Newt for Bringing Up Bain Now. 🙂
I so agree! Get it out there early in the primaries.
I think there’s a contradiction afoot. On the one hand, Newt’s defenders get upset when people point out that the Bain attack sounds like the kind of attack the left would hurl at Romney.
On the other hand, Newt’s defenders want everyone to appreciate the fact that he’s doing Romney and the GOP a favor by bringing this up, because the Bain attack is exactly what the left is going to hit Romney with in the general election.
So, Newt and the left are in full agreement with each another that Romney should be crucified over Bain’s forays into “vulture capitalism.” The difference is, Newt is launching his attack now, ahead of Obama and the OWS crowd, who will make the identical argument during the general election.
“Newt’s defenders get upset when people point out that the Bain attack sounds like the kind of attack the left would hurl at Romney.”
I reject your premise. Gingrich supporters get upset that any criticism of Romney’s tenure at Bain is spun as ‘an attack on Capitalism’.
It is no more an attack on Capitalism than criticism of Gingrich’s record in elected office is ‘an attack on Democracy’.
Such spin is dishonest and, frankly, the feeble kind of overblown defense one would hear from the left.
Rush went on to say in the last hour that Newt walked back the comments on Bain……that Newt said “went over the line” is, I believe, the quote.
Also, Rush was expressing that NRO and others are now seeing the Frankenstein’s monster (my words) they have created – and wonder “what have we done!?!”
Thanks. Brilliant *%$^$%# pundits. Thanks.
[…] about this now: Mitt's MasqueradeMore. Legal Insurrection with the Romney clip–and comments:Starting to count the price of defending Bain*** Imean it's not like this is the first time Romney has beencriticized in this manner. It was Mike […]
At least Romney accelerated the inevitable media morph job, so it’s “anybody but Obamney,” a little earlier. Brokered convention, anyone?
One can hope. But how much control will the Establishment possess?
From Politico:
Newt Gingrich signaled Wednesday that he believes his criticism of Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is a mistake — and that he’s created an impression that he was echoing Democratic rhetoric. … “It’s an impossible theme to talk about with Obama in the background. Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area [Bain Capital and destructive capitalism] because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect …
I am left to believe that Rush had a large influence here or Newt recognized the confusion that goes with taking a political argument into the same morass that Obama is going with Mitt’s candidacy.
You would have to be an idiot to compare the two instances.
But the GOP has become the “Stupid Party” after a great deal of strenuous effort.
Let me see who the Constitution Party is going to nominate this year.
Comparing himself and his business decisions with obama’s takeover of GM is not a winning argument. Most conservatives are livid about GM’s takeover and the loss f tax payer money given to the unions. Defending any action of obama is McCain redux. If he is nominated, are we going to hear Romney telling us what a nice guy obama is at heart like McCain did? Also, is he not admitting wit that statement that he is, in fact, a corporate raider and he did cause huge job losses? To hear some tell it, Bain is in the philanthorphy business. Nothing is further from the truth. The truth is that Bain and other companies like them are in the business of making money and many walk on the edge of legallity to acheive this.
I am totally against name calling lies being told by republican candidates but any truth should not be off the table. Who decides what should be taboo? Romney supporters will not be able to stop the obama machine from giving us chapter and verse everything Romney did at Bain and what Bain did period. I am totally against anyone teling me that any subject, if it is the truth, is not to be discussed.
Also, the idea that attacking Romney’s record at Bain is a slur on capitalism is ridiculous. Romney brought the subject up himself. He bragged about what a great businessman he is. In other words he opened the door to any criticizm that comes out. I have said raiding small companies by larger and richer companies like Bain are perfectly legal. However, it is walking on the dark side of the business world and is not all that admirable. Bain and Romney made a lot of money, in some cases doubled their investment. They didn’t acheive this by being “nice”.
The main reason this should all come out now is obvious. We have a choice of candidate now. After the primary is over we are locked in for good or evil. I don’t see why supporters of all candidates can’t understand this. There is no sense in saying we can’t talk about this or that because it’s not fair or not a nice thing to do or our candidate is above all criticism. Who in their right minds believe obama and the dims will not use everything they can find and don’t care if it is nice or fair. Indeed, they don’t care if it is even true.
I posted this previously in the other LI blog with Sean Hannity disussing the bain issue, but I am posting it here as well..
–
Ronald Reagan did not mean LBO’s, Bailouts, Buyouts, and Crony Capitalism, when he implemented his pro-capitalist economic recovery policies, so that American wall street firms, and corporate businesses, can practice corporate raiding, insider trading, and other such profitable enhancement and enrichment practices, at the expense of healthy/profitable business companies, the working employees, their pensions, their families, and their communities.
In other words, just because Romney and Bain Capital, could legally destroy companies, jobs, people’s pensions, lives, and their communities, does not mean it is good and right.
If a company fails on it’s own through bad business practices, and declares bankruptcy, then so be it, that’s the free market system.. But when a company like Bain Capital and Romney, comes in, and buys out the company, that is business healthy, and supporting working families and communities, then carves it up for sale to the highest bidder, making hundreds of millions of dollars at the company and workers expense, thus destroying those people pensions, communities, and lives, then that is NOT Free Market Capitalism, like Gov Parry aid, that’s vulture capitalism.. and it’s wrong, and should be illegal, as far as I’m concerned.
That’s why Romney is the real life Gordon Gekko, the epitome of corporate greed. He must be vetted on it, and should and must be accountable for..
This is not about legal or illgal corporate practice operations, more so than it is about Romney’s core values of Morality, Integrity, and Ethics, thus is about Romney’s personal charcater, especially if he wants to be the US President.
This Bain issue matters, as it is all about who we really want to be at America’s helm, as the next U.S. President. Someone who exemplifies courage, morality, integrity, ethics- ie; conservative values and principles, or not.
Perhaps this was a Kinsley gaffe. Romney’s record at Bain was perhaps just as much an exercise in the beauty of capitalism as his record with Romneycare was an excercise in the beauty of the free markets.