The hits just keep on coming:
A person who worked for Mitt Romney at the consulting firm Bain and Co. in 1977 remembers him with mixed feelings. “Mitt was … a really wonderful boss,” the former employee says. “He was nice, he was fair, he was logical, he said what he wanted … he was really encouraging.” But Bain and Co., the person recalls, pushed employees to find out secret revenue and sales data on its clients’ competitors. Romney, the person says, suggested “falsifying” who they were to get such information, by pretending to be a graduate student working on a project at Harvard. (The person, in fact, was a Harvard student, at Bain for the summer, but not working on any such projects.) “Mitt said to me something like ‘We won’t ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this, but [it is] a really good way to get the information.’ … I would not have had anything in my analysis if I had not pretended.
“It was a strange atmosphere. It did leave a bad taste in your mouth,” the former employee recalls.
This unsettling account suggests the young Romney—at that point only two years out of Harvard Business School—was willing to push into gray areas when it came to business. More than three decades later, as he tried to nail down the Republican nomination for president of the United States, Romney’s gray areas were again an issue when he repeatedly resisted calls to release more details of his net worth, his tax returns, and the large investments and assets held by him and his wife, Ann. Finally the other Republican candidates forced him to do so, but only highly selective disclosures were forthcoming.
[….]To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor.
Real Murkins love shady tax havens, it’s all they talk about around the Applebee’s Salad bar. Also too, class warfare, and why do liberals hate success?
jl
‘We won’t ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this… ”
I’m going to run for President, for Pete’s sake!
PeakVT
This unsettling account suggests the young Romney—at that point only two years out of Harvard Business School—was willing to push into gray areas when it came to business.
Yeah, we all should really want this guy in charge of the most powerful military in the world. Not.
Keith
“I won’t ask you to dispose of aborted fetuses, but if I turn around, and they’re gone, that would be swell.”
amk
@jl: egg.sack.lee. That’s the first thing that came to my mind.
Fucking coreless cretin.
David Koch
wait. wait a minute.
you’re telling me the guy who spent his free time in high school dressing up like a Michigan state trooper, putting a siren on his car and pulling over motorists told employees it’s fun playing “secret agent” dress-up?
Shocking! Shocking!
scav
I wonder if that horse isn’t on the board of any of these blind trusts . . . I mean, I know he’s not in the Senate yet.
The Dangerman
Sankatay? Buckwheat hit a three point shot?
Roger Moore
We’re just going to fire you if you can’t find out what we want.
Z
Has anyone asked Mitt Romney how much he’ll stand to personally gain if he becomes President and passes the corporate income tax repatriation holiday that he promises (I believe he’s calling for tax-free repatriation, but perhaps it’s just a lower rate like what Bush did).
Jewish Steel
What a ludicrous name. It’s like something from my email spam filter.
jl
The Sankaty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankaty_(steamboat)
” was a propeller-driven steamer that served as a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts; in Rockland, Maine; Stamford, Connecticut and Oyster Bay, Long Island; Staten Island, New York; Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island and Caribou, Nova Scotia ”
That is, it ferried items to offshore islands, on an internatinal route.
The rich are so droll!
I love the exquisite connoisseurship of the financial shell game language.
‘The Sankaty was a droll nondescript little vehicle with a oddly placid history given its many passages through narrow straights. The two hour transit between the false bottom divestiture and the spousal blind trust was a triumph of financial navigation. bwahaha”
freelancer
Ethicless rich superiority-addict is obsessed with winning and has no ethics. Film at Eleven.
YellowJournalism
So when he wants to know something from Chinese officials, is Mitt going to dress up like Justin Bieber and pretend he’s giving a concert as part of a world tour?
Roger Moore
@YellowJournalism:
Of course not. He doesn’t do that kind of thing himself anymore; that’s what lackeys are for.
Jewish Steel
@jl: Damn. I wish I could un-know that. Nauseating.
jl
straits
I never see those things in time.
El Cid
Somehow or other this is proof that it was over-regulation which forced Romney to defend his job-creating ways by seeking other-than-expected sources of important job-creating information.
YellowJournalism
@Roger Moore: Or Vice Presidents! Who would look better in a purple hoodie: Rubio, Ryan, or Chris Christie?
Mnemosyne
So here at the Giant Evil Corporation where I work (our motto: we warp kids’ minds from birth!), we have to do various trainings every year, including Standards of Business Conduct. Interestingly, the kind of conduct that Mitt was pressuring his employee to do (misrepresenting yourself to get information about a competitor) is explicitly and specifically spelled out as a no-no that can get your ass fired.
freelancer
@Mnemosyne:
Same at my Giant Evil Corporation, too. If anything, we’re encouraged to not just be fair to our business partners, but give them more money just to show our value. It’s brand promotion. Cutting corners just pisses people off and erodes good faith, but I guess that doesn’t matter when you gauge your value as a businessman by your earnings every 3 months instead of a trend over 3 decades.
Jewish Steel
@Mnemosyne, freelancer: And when was the last time you medaled at your family olympics? Uh huh. That’s what I thought.
Here’s a tip for you serfs: rules are for little people like you. When you create your own rules then you can savor the sweetness of denying, say, the mother of your own grandchildren a meaningless triumph.
I’ll be in my money grotto if you need me.
the farmer
“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” – Thomas Jefferson (1814)
*
Steve in DC
@the farmer:
Jefferson was the man, sadly the Tea Party seems to have what he actually stood for all fucked up.
TenguPhule
SHYAIT!
So That Southern Accent didn’t go away.
Romney, peddling SHIT to a tax haven near you.
Raven
Dipshit Halperin is wearing jacket, tie and fucking shorts on Joe!
Valdivia
title win DougJ, as always. And I just hope they keep hammering on this all summer long.
Douglas
Corporate espionage is a “gray area” now?
danielx
Simply amazing, or maybe not. Leading lights of the Republican Party – such as they are – know that Wall Street financiers of the predatory sort (is there any other kind?) aren’t exactly flavor of the day among voters at the moment. Never have been, for that matter. But it was evident from just about the beginning that Willard Mitt Romney was going to be the Republican nominee, even though he’s been running for president almost continuously since 2006 or thereabouts and is still about as popular as a case of herpes. Fuck, most of the party’s base – the voting base, anyway, as opposed to the financial base – can’t stand him, which should tell anyone with a pulse that his candidacy has major problems.
All this information about Bain Capital and its business practices, not to mention the Swiss bank account, etc etc etc, was and is freely available for the price of digging. But they went right ahead and nominated the Marquis anyway, since the alternatives who had a chance of getting the nomination were too awful to contemplate…
– Rick Santorum, one of the finest theocratic thinkers of the 14th century. Outlawing birth control – yeah, that’s a winning campaign slogan.
– Newt Gingrich, once rated the most unpopular politician in America, and whose Newticles™ have a positively Clintonian way of getting him in trouble. Plus he has the attention span of a two year old. Mars, bitches!
– Ron Paul (okay, we’re reaching here), who has some ideas worth contemplating and a lot of other ideas that qualify him for a nice canvas jacket with sleeves that tie in the back. Not the least of these being a particularly rabid streak of racism.
– The rest of them, Cain, Bachmann, et al, provided some comedy gold but were never going to achieve the nomination. They could and did fire up the Tea Partiers by bringing teh crazy, but they were too far away from the main interest of the Republican Party, which is the Franklins, the loot, the ill-gotten gains, to wit, the interests of its wealthy backers. However, Mitt had to make some promises to get the nomination and his Italian loafer clad feet will be held to the fire to keep them, no matter how uncomfortable this may be.
Hypothesis: Any candidate who can achieve the Republican nomination at this point is unelectable in a general election, barring the out-and-out purchase of office. The qualifier is all too possible, thanks to Citizens United and a conservative wing of the Supremes that might as well be a subsidiary of the American Enterprise Institute.
Even George W. Bush would have a hard time getting nominated at this point, supposing he were to run. The Republican base doesn’t want to hear any shit about “compassionate conservatism” – period. They want to hear about letting poor people die if they don’t have insurance, bombing brown people, cutting taxes and getting rid of those pesky teachers, policemen and firefighters. Except for the judicial and penal systems of course; there’s always going to be plenty of money for locking people up.
If it wasn’t for the Citizens United decision I’d say the Republican Party is on its last legs, since with Mittens’ nomination the party’s intellectual and moral bankruptcy is on full display in all its appalling detail. If Obama (with all his many faults) wins, there’s hope for an overturn of Citizens United and the return of something resembling a level playing field. But I really hate to pin any hopes on the Democratic Party, which is damn near as morally flawed as the Republicans.
Hmmm….early morning rant. Where was I going with this other than Mitt Romney being another Wall Street asshole?
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@scav:
I dunno . . . have you ever seen Chuck Grassley?
Patricia Kayden
“willing to push into gray areas”
You mean lie? The man does nothing but straight up lie.
Lurking Canadian
If this story gets any kind of traction, Halperin will soon explain why it is good news for Romney.
bemused
@Raven:
I would expect no less from Halperin.
Bex
Cue the media coverage of this…oh, sorry all we’re hearing is crickets…
Frankensteinbeck
@Steve in DC:
The ‘the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots’ quote the Teabaggers are so fond of is satirical, too. It’s from a document explaining that it’s really nice how few armed rebellions the US has compared to everyone else, but there will always be paranoid morons with guns. The irony amuses me. Greatly.
@Raven:
Dear Luna. On behalf of every fashion-loving man in the world, I hereby apologize for Halperin’s existence.
MattF
I see. The person who is telling all the lies is not the ‘real’ Mitt. It’s a simulacrum to whom ‘real Mitt’ has observed that lying can happen and sometimes has positive consequences. But ‘real Mitt’ is still truthful and innocent. Just because the simulacrum occupies the same body as ‘real Mitt’ is a technicality.
It’s called ‘dissociation’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)
and it’s one of those psychological-shit-happens mechanisms that come out under stress. However, when it’s your normal way of dealing with reality, that’s a bad thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: Is he appearing via satellite from Bermuda? No? Then he has no excuse. Okay, I’ll admit that I wore things like that for fraternity composite pictures when I was in college, but – and this is the thing – the pictures were head and shoulder shots.
Frankensteinbeck
@MattF:
I know you’re snarking, but I have all too much experience with dissociation. If this were dissociation, he’d be a WAY better liar, cool and implacable and immune to the nervous babbling he’s so prone to. Locking those emotions away where they can’t screw you up is the point of the defense mechanism.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m horrified you dressed that way then, but the excuse is you were a college student in a fraternity, not the type of photo. Halperin is a media figure. He should know better. Hell, the stage manager at the studio should have dropped to his knees and begged Halperin to get a clue before they reached his segment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: FWIW I didn’t venture out-of-doors dressed that way. And it was only for the five or so minutes necessary to take the picture. A matter of convenience, not a fashion statement. I do recognize that it was an appalling thing to do and I accept your censure.
Mino
Man, oh, man, I hope the LDS church is giving him dispensation to lie. And I hope they realize what Mittens, as the first really high-profile Morman in the info age, is doing to their reputation.
MattF
@Frankensteinbeck: Interesting. More like failed dissociation, then? I bring this up because there’s something about Romney that my eye skips over, so there’s some defense mechanism there that’s doing something.
Mino
@Raven: Did his mother dress him?
Frankensteinbeck
@MattF:
The whole ‘he doesn’t seem human’ issue? I believe it’s a side effect of being not just an out of touch rich elitist, but never having been in touch. Between being raised and doing most of his socializing in a closed subculture – the Mormon Church – and never having associated outside of it with anyone who’s not rich, he’s a foreigner who we subconsciously expect to be a member of our society. He emits none of the body language or verbal signals we use, making him seem like a lifeless nonentity. He’s clearly aware of the issue, but his attempts to fake being part of our culture come off like a middle aged man wearing tattered jeans around his knees.
kc
I’m sensing a theme here with Romney. Impersonating a cop, a fireman, trying to get an employee to engage in corporate spying..,maybe he really wants to be James Bond.
Frankensteinbeck
@MattF:
By the way, that he so obviously knows about the problem strongly suggests he views us as ‘the Other’. If so, that would explain his apparent sociopathy. Anyone who makes less than 250k a year is not human in his eyes, our feelings are alien and unguessable, and our lives are of no more value than an animal’s.
bago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-maxing
The kind of people that “win” the game, but ruin it for everyone else.
Svensker
@Frankensteinbeck:
Really? Could you point me to that document?
cmorenc
@danielx:
True, but the substantial portion of the GOP base who viscerally distrusted and disliked Romney before he cinched the nomination is so drunk on Obama-hate lager that they’re wearing beer-goggles thick as coke-bottle bottoms that momentarily make Romney look ravishingly beautiful. Should they be successful in getting electorally laid with Romney in November, they’ll have an orgasm that’s momentarily the most exquisite of their life since their youthful nights with Reagan, but looking at him in morning light next spring, they’ll quickly realize just how drunk they had to be to get in bed with him for some political sex.
Culture of Truth
FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY AREAS
Culture of Truth
GRAY AREAS FOR MEN
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Svensker:
Here. Scroll down for the text.
rikyrah
I think it’s hilarious. Like POTUS’ team hasn’t been leaking this stuff every other day.
Lihtox
@David Koch: Yes, the fake state trooper was what came to mind when I read this too. There seems to be a consistent thread of blatant dishonesty that runs throughout his career, and it’s prevalence is almost astounding.
Culture of Truth
@Lihtox: At this point being associated with Mitt Romney is going to start giving corporate raiders a bad name.
Culture of Truth
Halperin was just wearing Bermuda shorts in a shourt-out to Mitt Romney.
Cacti
A little lying is no sin when you’re out to fulfill the White Horse Prophecy.
Citizen_X
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Holy cow, it’s a dead-accurate description of the Teabaggers:
So, he would kind of be happy to see the Teabaggers–in all their ignorance.
quannlace
On Morning Joe, they were still going on about Romeny in vaction-land. They actually called photos of him on a water-ski as ‘Kennedy-esque.” Ughhh.
nitpicker
So W. Mitt Romney is a sneaky bastard. You were warned. As Annie Lamott wrote in Crooked Little Heart, you should never trust a man who parts his name on the left.
maya
21st Century Republican Truths:
A. NOT paying taxes is patriotic.[See any Sarah Palin You Tube.] Therefor,
B. Off-shoring your money IS patriotic.
C. Rush moving to Costa Rica is the most patriotic act a true Patriot can make – become an Ex-patriot.
D. As long as Mitt did not sport a ski-mask and a Glock while doing it, it’s perfectly legal.
This handy little pocket guide should clear up any misconceptions you might harbor. Clip it out of the comments section and carry it in your wallet or purse during the 2012 Election Season. It may even satisfy Proof of Citizenship requirements in some states.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mnemosyne: That’s why Giant Evil Corporations hire[d] Bain — they outsource their institutional bastardry.
Origuy
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: That’s some serious 18th Century snark! I like this line: “Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying.” It’s like Jefferson was anticipating Romney.
sparky
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: um, i don’t think that is satire. he meant it, just as he meant it when he wrote:
Letter from Jefferson to Madison, 1789
@danielx: agreed. i find it rather unlikely, barring some catastrophe (as the public might see it) that would enable Romney to win, or rather, Obama to lose.
pseudonymous in nc
@sparky:
I think he meant it too. He’s saying “better a rebellion of the misinformed that keeps their rulers honest than just sucking it up.” What he’s not saying is that it’s somehow a noble thing, which is how it’s usually invoked. More like Trotsky’s permanent revolution than anything else, and somewhat easier for Jefferson to say from his posting in Paris in 1787 than a few years later.
Frankensteinbeck
@Origuy:
The Founding Fathers were a bunch of truly venomous and sarcastic men. It warms the cockles of my black heart. Enlightenment thinkers through and through, they valued rational thought and cleverness as one of the highest human virtues. This includes wit.
Conservatives are about as faithful to the Founding Fathers as they are to Jesus.
Svensker
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Yeah, but I don’t see it as “satire” or talking about “morons with guns” exactly.
Felinious Wench
Oh good, let’s turn the rest of the country into Enron.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@sparky:
I didn’t say it was. I looked for the letter myself when I saw Frankensteinbeck’s description, saw the request when I came back from the search, and passed the link on. I think Citizen_X is right: Jefferson would love the Teabaggers’ passion while at the same time deploring their ignorance.
It reminds me of Fred Clark’s essay on anti-choicers actions vs their rhetoric.