The Bain Event: Watch All 5 Of Mitt Romney’s Bain Storm Interviews

[maddezmom]

Former Massachusetts Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, responding to weeks of revelations about, and attacks on, his tenure at Bain Capital, hastily scheduled a round of interviews with ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC Friday evening in order to respond to the attacks. While the headlines to emerge from these interviews have mainly dealt with Gov. Romney’s demand for an apology from President Obama, a comparison of these interviews is instructive in a variety of ways.

From a political standpoint, the repetition of themes in these interviews provides a window into the messages that Gov. Romney wants to deliver. The most practical takeaway is that he would like very much to move the goalposts on his involvement with Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002. While his declaration on a federal disclosure form read “Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,” Romney stressed, in each of these interviews, that he had no management responsibilities.

On that score, NBC News’ Peter Alexander does the best job of pressing Romney on that point, asking him to state categorically that he attended no meetings involving Bain, or its entities. Romney carefully replied that he couldn’t “recall” any such meetings, but continued to stress that he had no management responsibilities. That qualifier, that he doesn’t “recall” any meetings, is volunteered in several of the other interviews.

In several of the interviews, Romney also asserts that “there’s nothing wrong” with being associated with Bain Capital during those years, but that he simply wasn’t there. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl zeroed in on that, asking “So you don’t disavow what happened at the company, that they may have done things that were wrong, not wrong that you had nothing to do with. Would there be something with being associated with Bain Capitol during those years?”

more: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-bain-event-watch-all-5-of-mitt-romneys-bain-storm-interviews/#0

[spanone]

1. the sunday morning talk shows will be interesting...i suspect 'swiftboating' will be the mantra