There’s been a fair amount of controversy over when Mitt Romney left Bain. He says it was in 1999, which allows him to claim he had nothing to do with some potentially embarrassing actions taken by the company later. But filings with the SEC list him as CEO and owner for another 3 years. The Obama campaign naturally argues that he is responsible for shipping jobs overseas and Romney says not so. But I couldn’t care less about that. To me, this controversy is only important for one reason, what it tells us about Romney. There are, as I see it, only three possible scenarios.
One: Mitt Romney lied to the country about when he left Bain. Two: Mitt Romney lied to the SEC which is a federal crime. Three: Mitt Romney is incapable of navigating a legal document. None of those bode well for a president.
For what its worth, my money is on option one. Romney has repeatedly, almost daily, lied about the past in order to benefit his campaign. His strategy seems to be to come up with a narrative he likes and not allow truth or facts to get in its way. Is something that happened in the past inconvenient to that narrative? Lie about it! That’s nothing new for Romney. He’s banking on a public too tuned out to notice and a press corps too lazy to care. It may work.
And yes, politicians all lie. Including Barack Obama. But here is the difference. While most pols “lies” are basically just exaggeration, truth stretching, funny math, or embellishment (ie “truthiness”), Mitt Romney’s are more overt, and more frequent. They are outright, verifiably lies. He will say anything to get elected. Facts are unimportant.
Why does anyone think this time is different?
520 Chestnut 
Omg…Romney does lie. It’s disgusting. Say what you will about Rick Perry and the other republican candidates. They were idiots, they pandered, they were war mongers. All of that is true, but they were what they were. You know what you were getting with your vote. What the frak is the deal with Mitt Romney?!? I was always taken aback by his willingness to say whatever it took to look good in a given moment. His ability to lie on cue is borderline sociopathic. He introduces a whole new low, in my opinion, to the political arena.
I have a feeling that this election is going to be one of the nastiest in American history. It seems to me that Obama is hated by the republicans about as much as Bush was hated by the democrats. I know that the party base doesn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for Romney, but I get the impression that they are desperate and willing to do/say anything and everything necessary to get Obama out of office. I’m not looking forward to this election, but I am curious to see how Obama handles the heat. It’s been bad in the past and he has always done a remarkable job of maintaining focus and keeping true to his message (something about him for which I have a great deal of respect), so hopefully he’ll surround himself with smart people and do his best to fight the good fight. Either way, us Americans are about to make ourselves look pretty bad in the eyes of the rest of the world.
What are your thoughts regarding this next election? Do you think it’s going to be ugly? Is Obama going to start campaigning more strongly on his successes or do you think he’s going to swing in the dirt?
[…] occured during the time period in question. I think that completely misses the point. Last week I wrote: There are, as I see it, only three possible […]