May 22, 2012
Is President Obama for capitalism or is he against it? It's hard to tell from his and his surrogates' attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, and the defense of those attacks they have since been forced to mount.
Here is how Obama described Romney's former industry at a NATO press conference Monday: "I think my view of private equity is that it is set up to maximize profits. And that's a healthy part of a free market. That's part of the role of a lot of business people. That is not unique to private equity. And as I think my representatives have said repeatedly and will say today, I think there are folks who do good work in that area."
Got that? Now here is how Obama surrogate and House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, S.C., described Romney's tenure at Bain Capital on MSNBC on Tuesday: "[T]here's something about raping companies and leaving them in debt and setting up Swiss bank accounts and corporate businesses in the Grand Caymans. I have a real serious problem with that."
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Those do not sound like descriptions of good folks doing the healthy work of free markets.
The reason Obama surrogates like New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, former auto czar Steve Rattner, Clyburn and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell can't stay on message when it comes to Bain is that Obama seems conflicted about capitalism.
Obama's ads betray a belief that profits are, at best, a necessary evil that should always take a back seat to other community concerns.
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