The other day, Stephanie Cutter (the Obama campaign’s deputy manager) remarked that if Mitt Romney’s SEC filings were inaccurate, Romney might have committed a felony.
Mitt Romney took umbrage at that statement. Indeed, he sounded downright offended during his whirlwind five-network “I did not have managerial relations with that company, Bain Capital” apology tour:
“What kind of president would have a campaign that says something like that about the nominee of another party?” Romney said to CBS. “This is reckless and absurd on his part, and something that’s beneath his dignity. I hope he recognizes that even fellow Democrats have said that.”
Scoff.
Mitt Romney talking about Obama’s lack of dignity is like someone with no dignity talking about someone else’s lack of dignity.
Brian R.
What Stephanie Cutter said was a statement of fact.
If those forms are inaccurate, that’s a felony. Period.
If I tell my wife that if she drives through a stop sign, she could get a ticket, that’s not “reckless and absurd” on my part. It’s common fucking sense.
Randy P
It’s all squid ink at this point. Just throw a cloud of words out there at the press and voters and hope he can scuttle away to safety till the attacker loses interest.
I’m delighted to see that it doesn’t seem to be working.
Redshift
I always assume this kind of thing is coming from Mitt himself and his yes-men, because I cannot imagine any campaign professional thinking that ‘how dare you!’ is an effective defense.
Roger Moore
@Randy P:
I believe the term of art is “squid-cloud of butthurt”; at least that’s what it says in the Balloon-Juice Lexicon.
wrb
What would happen if Romney was found to have committed not one, but 3 strikes?
Anoniminous
Bain must be hurting them bad. Pigs only squeal if they are frustrated or being pinched.
(Says a former Iowan.)
Robin G.
Complaining about his fee-fees doesn’t do a presidential candidate any favors. If Romney keeps wrapping Obama’s rope around his neck he’ll cover his face and suffocate before anyone kicks out the chair.
Violet
Mitt went on five networks to talk about this issue, after making the point that he didn’t think he needed to talk to the press through the usual channels. What does that telegraph? Panic. You don’t do that unless you’re running scared.
Mitt’s never had to play without starting on third base. He was born into wealth and power connections and used those for everything he’s done. Now he has to play hardball and he’s floundering. He doesn’t know how because he never had to learn.
slag
@Brian R.: Exactly. Mitt should be thanking Stephanie Cutter for trying to prevent him from losing his right to vote. Lying to the general public could prevent him from becoming president, but lying to the SEC could prevent him from being able to vote for president. If he’s smart, he’ll admit his mistake asap so that he doesn’t end up feeling the long arm of the law on his backside.
Hypatia's Momma
@Roger Moore:
A cloud of glowing snot, more like. Befitting someone trying to hide in the dark.
rikyrah
WILLARD: I want an apology.
Obama campaign: go fuck yourself
BGinCHI
Here’s how I know the Romney camp is fucked.
If they were any good at this they would counter-punch, but they have nothing.
That tag line at the end of the new Obama ad is just perfect:
Romney isn’t the solution. He’s the problem.
Anonymous37
“What kind of president would have a campaign that says something like that about the nominee of another party?”
The kind of president who’s running against Mitt Romney.
jl
So, Mitt’s got nothing to counter. I am sad for him. Mostly I feel glee, but, there is a speck of pity and sadness in there. I think. Hilarious pity and the sadness of risible grim black comedy.
Yet, surely, one must credit me with sadness, for there is a speck of that as well. In fact, the source of the grim hilarity is the pathos of seeing a corrupt self-satisfied arrogant fraud destroying himself, making an ass of himself, in front of the whole country.
So, in a sense, sadness and pity for Mitt, is the source, the first cause, the prime mover of all my emotion. Therefore, through a ‘quirk in the law’ of standard deontic logic, I am absolved of ‘being mean’.
But, as I said before, if Romney could explain to the Amercian people all the great things Bain did, he wold be halfway out this jam.
You know, I have an idea. Probably should send it too the Romney team. Mitt could have a bunch of TV interviews, and get the word out and explain everything to the whole country, get it out there on all the news shows. Why, he could do this in one afternoon! No one would talk about anything else for a couple of days.
He could tell who took over for him at Bain, and he could talk about how his shares went into a blind trust run by someone other than his wife. And, regardless of degree of control he had, he could explain all the great things Bain did. He could just, dammit, get up there and explain how the corporate culture and good citizenship he instilled in that place, continued on, even after he left, in his memory, in his honor.
Why didn’t he do that?
Dammit, I am going to send in that idea, and I bet you next time I log on to ‘o. Balloon Juice, I can announce I have a brand new job, and you can all congratulate me!
JPL
CSPAN is covering the President live at 4:15…
soonergrunt
@jl: you realize that you just made the thread irrelevant, right?
JPL
Andrew Sullivan last night on twitter
dmsilev
There’s also a certain element of the LBJ “make him deny he’s a pig-fucker” approach; I’ve seen several news stories that contain lines that run something like “Romney demanded that the Obama campaign apologize for saying that Romney might be a felon.”.
And speaking of LBJ, Josh Marshall mentioned something earlier today which I had also noticed, that the sound effects in Obama’s new ad (the singing Mitt ad) were very reminiscent of the infamous Daisy ad. I wonder whether that was deliberate or just a happy accident.
Chris
What Obama should do is a weasel word campaign of “I take Mitt Romney at his word” and the like. Be nice payback for the birther shit he’s had to endure for 4 years.
JPL
@jl: Gosh darn, he is running for president and needs you.
gene108
This is easy to answer for the Romney campaign: Name the person, who was running Bain, when Mitt was heading the Salt Lake City Olympic committee.
Mitt could be named President, CEO, 100% owner and grand-poo-bah of Bain Capital on SEC forms, but the simple answer is (a) we did not feel it appropriate to change the legal structure of the company because of too many job killing rules and regulations we’d have had to follow and (b) “John/Jane Doe” was in charge of day-to-day operations.
What is really strange is John/Jane Doe has yet to be found.
jl
@soonergrunt: sorry, busy working on idea for Mitt. Respond later.
hueyplong
I know first things first, but I’m looking forward to the ads showing Mitt The Merchant of Death profiting from the corporate disposal of the murdered unborn.
We’ll want to see the tax returns to know how much he profited from it (and he profited from it even under his current denials about running things). Absent those returns, let’s go ahead and publicly guess it was millions of dollars per year. If he wants to disprove it, he’s welcome to show us the returns.
Those would be superPAC ads run by Citizens for Corporations with a Christian Conscience. After all, corporations are people, my friend, and Mitt’s corporation clearly needs to be saved or otherwise reject its ongoing embrace with Satan so as to accept Christ as its personal savior.
Xenos
What was the term Palin used… “man pants”?
JGabriel
I don’t know, Mitt. What kind of party would nominate a potential felon?
.
Nutella
OK, that made me laugh out loud.
Next he’ll be wondering what the meaning of is, is.
OzoneR
Hypocrisy is an American virtue.
IM
And Romney, remember wrote a book No apology.
Changed his mind on apologies, too.
JPL
Last night I read that Romney while running against Kennedy used the leave of absence excuse. It didn’t work. He has been closing plants for years before 1999 but there is a
shinyanother business that he doesn’t want to be associated with.slag
@BGinCHI:
I couldn’t agree more. Link again. In just two short sentences, the Obama campaign unified their campaign’s messaging with the prevailing liberal perspective. In other words, that ad really tied the room together.
NonyNony
@hueyplong:
You don’t need or want ads for that – that turns off Democratic voters.
That kind of information is already being spread to Christians via Facebook and chain e-mails. That’s where you want it to stay for the most part.
I’ve seen some of the stuff they were passing around during the primary. There are reasons why Romney took so long to seal the deal despite the fact that his opponents were obviously clown car material. And reasons why he’s not able to “tack to the center” like he was supposed to after he locked up the nomination. He still hasn’t locked up the GOP base’s vote despite winning the nomination, and the Stericycle stuff is a big reason for that.
the Conster
@JPL:
Can Sully award himself a Moore award?
@rikyrah: thanks for the Obama clip from the previous thread. You rock.
“I did not have managerial relations with that company”. That needs to be tweeted far and wide ABL.
wrb
@hueyplong:
Is it possible that between the tax returns and the off-shore accounts there aren’t two more felonies to be found?
He reported everything?
ha!
Citizen Alan
@JPL:
I was about to discuss this, but trust Andrew fucking Sullivan to get the facts about Clinton wrong. Clinton lied under oath about a sensitive personal matter in response to a question later held to be irrelevant by the judge overseeing the case that was dismissed has having no legal merit. That is not perjury as that term is legally defined. But that doesn’t stop Republicans who despise Bill Clinton (and I include Sully in that, no matter what political beliefs he professes to have) from slandering him as a perjurer even though he was never charged let alone convicted of any such crime.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Maybe because every potential John Doe* realizes that they’d be in a heap of trouble with the SEC. If Mitt was committing perjury when he said he as in charge of Bain, then whoever was really in charge was at the very least suborning perjury by getting Mitt to do it.
*No way is any Jane going to be within ICBM range of the top of Mitt Romney’s company.
Turgidson
@Brian R.:
Is your wife a former vulture capitalist worth hundreds of millions of dollars? In that case, it probably is reckless and absurd to tell her she’s anything but the greatest person who’s ever lived, kiss her ass and tell her it tastes like ice cream, and thank her every 20 minutes for allowing you to bask in her reflective glow.
That’s the premise Mittens is operating under with his pathetic non-denial denials and apology demands. I’m Mitt Romney for pete’s sake! If I do it, it is not illegal!
Sly
Will this suffice?
JPL
@Citizen Alan: Thank you for mentioning that. You are correct to be upset that some still believe that, esp. Sully but I like his comment because it will irritate the whackos.
Roger Moore
@NonyNony:
Especially because they’re going to be perfectly happy to do your dirty work for you. Damn it’s nice to see the Republicans getting ratfucked for a change.
JGabriel
@Citizen Alan:
I been sayin’ that for goin’ on two decades now. But does anyone lissen?
NOOOOOOOooooooo…
Gits me fookin’ goat, it does.
.
Linda Featheringill
@dmsilev:
The Daisy Ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63h_v6uf0Ao
I don’t see the similarity but then what do I know?
Nutella
@Sly:
Now I’ve laughed out loud twice in one BJ thread.
Maybe the Obama campaign should send that pic as its reply to Romney’s demand for an apology.
Turgidson
@BGinCHI:
Holy fucking awesome. I hadn’t seen that. They should put that at the end of every single ad they run. So, so good.
ETA blockquote fail, but it can’t tarnish that line’s goodness.
Kane
He has no room to be whining for apologies. Back in November Romney deliberately misquoted President Obama in an ad and then defended the ad by saying “what’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander.”
How’s that sauce workin’ out for ya?
Tony the Wonderhorse
This demand has no meaning in the operative sense but it’s very useful politically. First, competing headlines. Second, when your hand is weak, ATTACK! Third, Mitt’s an idiot.
it is objectively meaningless, there is no reason to apologize.
JPL
@Linda Featheringill: Someone answered David’s question about the daisy ad. The responses are fascinating and I guess there is the same echo in one section but as the screen changes so does the background. It’s all beyond me though. The ad did affect me in the same way though.
JGabriel
@Turgidson:
I love how it echoes Reagan’s “Government isn’t the solution” bullshit.
.
wrb
@Sly:
that is completely wonderful
Zifnab
Every day Mitt Romney has to talk about this is another day Obama wins.
hueyplong
It seems obvious that there has been a lot of pent up demand for a Democrat who hits back. Hard.
It’s nice to see the Obama campaign make a conscious decision not to adopt the Rendell/Leiberman/Vichy model.
the Conster
I can imagine how the wingnuts must feel watching this slow motion shitshow, by imagining how I’d feel if Edwards had gotten the nom, and I wasn’t on team Edwards. Holy shit, a bullet was dodged.
wrb
@JGabriel:
Uh oh. They can take a guy’s milkin’ goat, but when they come for his fookin’ goat…
Edit: Romney’s acting like someone got his fookin’ goat.
Tense and jumpy.
bluehill
good point, Violet. Romney probably isn’t used to people punching back given the wealth and status of his family and his subsequent accomplishments. It’s not a knock on him, just the way it is. However, he’s a bully who probably doesn’t realize the real reason he has been able to bend the rules and get away with things that most other people can’t. Now he’s fighting someone who isn’t backing down and Romney’s character is beginning to show.
sublime33
In every company I have ever worked for, when the president leaves for any reason, there is a press release issued to the investors, banks, employees, suppliers, etc. that states something like “Effective May 31, Bob Smith will be stepping down as president and CEO. Replacing him will be John Doe, who has served as VP of operations at Halliburton…”. Or if one is quickly removed, the second sentence might say “we are in the process of conducting an executive search to find a suitable replacement. In the meantime, Joe Blow will act as Chief Operating Officer until a replacement for Mr. Smith is found”.
As John Cole aptly put yesterday, who exactly replaced Mitt Romney at Bain in 1999? Forget “where’s the birth certificate”. Who the hell is the successor?
Valdivia
OT but wow. I hope Romney takes a pic with Bibi next. via LGF comments
JPL
How long before wah wah Mitt says he’ll apologize to the overseas crowd but not to a real American.
Is Sarah selecting her I’ll run, I’ll run outfit for the convention?
also, too.. I do know that the President didn’t apologize.
Kane
Romney is having his shame on you Barack Obama moment. I swear that Romney is a political plagiarist.
The Other Chuck
“Knowingly filing false statements with federal agencies is a felony, that’s a non-partisan fact. I look forward to Romney clearing up the matter by giving a straight answer to the question.”
Mitt’s going to have to take “evasive and shifty” over “indicted”. He’s still only got to work from a 45% floor of the vote total after all.
JPL
@Valdivia: The evangelicals must be proud.
Mike in NC
Lord R-money will dispatch his faithful manservant Jeeves to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to receive this apology forthwith! It had better be printed on the finest White House stationary, too.
Linda Featheringill
OT but related to the deniers of climate change:
http://www.weather.com/news/drought-disaster-photos-20120713?pageno=1
Pictures of the current drought in the US.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
willard is just playing to type. he is like the john wayne of highly profitable but still low budget straight to video slasher flicks.
slag
@Sly: I particularly enjoy how he got Rmoney and Rove in the same shot. And I, too, laughed out loud at that picture.
Haydnseek
Fuck Mittens, and the magical dancing horse he rode in on.
Dee Loralei
Is Team Romney really taking this weekend off in NH? After just taking a week off last week? Just WOW! Obama is in all their OODA Loops, killing all their dudes. And he’s getting ready to go to the Olympics in London and fundraiser and then on to Israel for their non-fundraising non-dinner on a Holy fasting day. Sheesh, they are horrible at this politics stuff.
I think Team Obama is enjoying fucking with Romney even more than they enjoyed fucking with McCain.
But seriously in his OODA Loop. Romney’s gonna bluescreen before the debates.
Anya
@Valdivia: Wouldn’t this make Natinyahu a hero both here and in Israel?
SiubhanDuinne
If that is an exact quote, Mittens is being just a leetle premature. He is a candidate for President; he is not the nominee until he is formally and officially nominated at his party’s nominating convention. But that’s a quibbling and minor distinction for someone who plays fast and loose with FEC and SEC paperwork.
SiubhanDuinne
If that is an exact quote, Mittens is being just a leetle premature. He is a candidate for President; he is not the nominee until he is formally and officially nominated at his party’s nominating convention. But that’s a quibbling and minor distinction for someone who plays fast and loose with FEC and SEC paperwork.
Alexander Dope
Greetings everyone, first-time long-time. I hope I don’t end my BJ commenting career before it even begins with a filibuster of this thread, but the press reaction to this situation is a true Gladwellian tipping point vis a vis my disgust with the media and has made my brain explode all over my touch-screen keyboard.
For the past five years or so the Republicans have been insisting that anyone who has been foreclosed upon for believing what they were told by the banksters and brokers deserved to lose their home because they SHOULD HAVE READ THE FINE PRINT BEFORE SIGNING ON THE DOTTED LINE.
Either your signature means something, or it doesn’t. There are very real and legally signifcant responsibilities, obligations, exposure that come with corporate officership. To name just a couple, HIPAA and Sarbannes-Oxley impose criminal penalties on officers whose corporations break those laws.
Telling the SEC that you are CEO while letting somebody else run the company (with absolutely zero input from yourself) and do God only knows what in your name is no different than giving some random dude on the street your federally registered firearm because your gun safe is getting full and, besides, he promised not to do anything bad with it.
Putting aside the fact that he’s a lying sack of shit whose pants remain uncharred only because of the flame-retardant properties of his magic panties; who (even Real ‘Murkins) could possibly vote for somebody with so little common fucking sense?
Valdivia
@Anya:
to certain sectors in Israel and here yes, but the fact that he was investigated by the FBI, smells of Pollard connections, etc. Nothing might happen with it but it’s good to see some of the dirt on Bibi coming out. There’s lots of it.
catclub
Pakistan wanted an apology for sending a Seal Team to kill Bin Laden. They did not get one.
BGinCHI
@Linda Featheringill: Just Terribel.
I grew up near Celery Bog. Bad for the critters and flora what’s going on right now.
ABL
What’s striking about the BJ comments over the last several days is that the “ROMNEY IS GOING TO WIN BECAUSE HE HAS THE BAJILLION DOLLARS” trolls seem to have disappeared.
Funny, that.
Anya
@Valdivia: Bibi is a piece of shit. I hope he ends up in jail or humiliated. I wonder though if he will involve himself with the US election. He can’t be sure of a Romney win, so, can he afford to completely alienate a US president poised to win his second term.
Valdivia
@Alexander Dope:
hope you keep commenting :)
Linda Featheringill
@Alexander Dope:
You’re right, of course. If you sign as the owner, you own it.
Mitt knew that. He really should know and probably does know quite a bit about SEC filings and other associated paperwork.
If people of more modest means have to stand by their signature, so should the 1% or so.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitt actually did go through the motions of resigning from Bain but just couldn’t let anyone else be in control of his pet companies. He just had to maintain control himself. And here he is.
Robin G.
@Dee Loralei:
Calling it now: Romney stakes his bid on weaseling out of the debates. If I were running his campaign, I’d do everything possible up to and including claiming typhus–hell, actually GIVING him typhus–to stop it from happening. There’s no amount of heat he can take for it that will equal the devastation of standing up in a room with Barack Obama.
lacp
@ABL: OK, ABL, I’ll bite – UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!! Better?
Rich (in name only) in Reno
“Mittens Wants an Apology from the Obama Campaign”
And as my dear Old Pop used to say, “Yeah, and they want ice water in Hell, too.”
No doubt, were Mitt to request a cold one down yonder in the Infernal Regions, the Prince of Lies would see to it himself; “professional courtesy,” don’t you know.
catclub
@Linda Featheringill: See also the Robo-signing scandal. A shame they mostly got away with it.
Anyone notice that Romney is not called the Romneytronic for nothing.
Amir Khalid
Mitt hasn’t had one of his better weeks, has he? And he only looks worse after handling it all so badly. Another week or two of this, and there might not be enough left of Mitt to carry the fight to November. It’s a shame your presidential elections aren’t like boxing matches, where a referee can stop the fight as an act of mercy to the poor schlub who’s getting pounded to a bloody pulp.
Amir Khalid
@Robin G.:
McCain actually tried that in 2008, When the financial crisis broke, he wanted to cancel the first presidential debate. But Obama refused, pointing out that the president had to be able to handle more than one thing at a time. So McCain blew his lines in at the crisis session in DC — which George Walker Bush stage-managed to try and give McCain a chance to shine — and you know the rest.
Honus
@Citizen Alan: Clinton was disbarred, though, for lying under oath if I remember correctly. Valid point though.
Nixon was disbarred too. The last two presidents who were lawyers were disbarred.
jp7505a
If Mittens had been on his leave of absence between 1999 and 2002 and, in 1999, Bain had invested in a small company with maybe a couple of doz. employees. By 2002 that company had grown to thousands of employees and had a retail outlet on every other corner (kinda like Starbucks), I suspect that Mittens would be bragging on his job creation skills, leave of absence or not. In fact I rather suspect that company logo would be tattoed on the farhead of every member of the Rommney clan
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Thing is mittens is basically pounding himself to a bloody pulp with his past. All Obama has to do is open the door.
xian
@rikyrah: maybe he shouldnt have accused obama of apologizing too much
xian
@slag: i see what you did there.
careful, man, there’s a beverage here
xian
@Dee Loralei: i know. is he just gonna phone it in per bob dole ’96? didnt he see kerry lose the election over the summer? he’s starting to look like Palin up there in terms of unpreparedness.
LanceThruster
General Broulard: It would be a pity to lose your promotion before you get it. A promotion you have so very carefully planned for.
Colonel Dax: Sir, would you like me to suggest what you can do with that promotion?
General Broulard: [angry] Colonel Dax! You will apologize at once or I shall have you placed under arrest!
Colonel Dax: I apologize… for not being entirely honest with you. I apologize for not revealing my true feelings. I apologize, sir, for not telling you sooner that you’re a degenerate, sadistic old man. And you can go to hell before I apologize to you now or ever again!