Obama’s Bain Capital mutiny

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

CHICAGO — President Barack Obama flew into Chicago grimly set on ending the war in Afghanistan — and left his hometown by gleefully starting a new one over Bain Capital with Mitt Romney.

If Obama had any reticence about diving into an election-year controversy at an otherwise deeply sober gathering of world leaders bent on ending 10 years of conflict, he wasn’t showing it Monday when asked about the escalating controversy over Romney’s stewardship of his highly profitable private equity firm.

And not just Romney — Obama’s damn-the-torpedoes remarks were also aimed at some of his fellow Democrats who are increasingly anxious that their party’s leader is attacking a private equity firm for doing what such businesses were created to do: make cash within the confines of the law.

“My opponent, Gov. Romney, his main calling card for why he should be president is his business experience,” Obama told American and international reporters at McCormick Place at the conclusion of the two-day NATO summit focused on the seemingly weightier issues of Afghan withdrawal and Pakistan.

The deep blue of the NATO stage backdrop seemed, for a moment, to morph into the sky blue of Obama’s campaign sets.

“When you’re president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. … So, if your main argument for how to grow the economy is ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you’re missing what this job is about,” Obama said. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity, but that’s not what my job is as president.”

Obama’s staff and Romney aides have been locked in an intensifying battle after Newark Mayor — and Obama ally — Cory Booker blasted the Obama campaign’s targeting of the venture capital firm as “nauseating” and a “distraction from the real issues.”

Republicans spent the day seizing on Booker’s comments, hoping to drive a clear wedge between Obama and some Democrats. And Romney cited Booker by name in his own response to Obama’s afternoon attack.

“President Obama confirmed today that he will continue his attacks on the free enterprise system, which Mayor Booker and other leading Democrats have spoken out against,” Romney said in a statement. “What this election is about is the 23 million Americans who are still struggling to find work and the millions who have lost their homes and have fallen into poverty. President Obama refuses to accept moral responsibility for his failed policies. My campaign is offering a positive agenda to help America get back to work.”

For Obama’s campaign, Bain Capital remains a potent weapon against Romney. But for some Democrats, it’s a headache they don’t want.

________

 

But it seems to be a self-inflicted wound...