And just because I wrote about the Condi business doesn't mean the Romney camp successfully "distracted" me. Bain is still the story.
As you know, some lines are being drawn in the media. The big Romney story defenders thus far are Glenn Kessler at the Wash Post and Dan Primack for Fortune. Factcheck.org wrote yesterday that "we see little new in any of these SEC filings."
It should be noted that these defenses are chiefly on the narrow questions like whether it's possible for Romney to have been CEO and sole owner while having nothing to do with Bain decisions. That's fine. But for my money that isn't the same as saying there's no story here.
When we leave jobs, we leave. When a guy says a thousand and one times that he left a company, most of us assume that means he left. It doesn't mean he's still the CEO and still making at least $100,000 a year (at least, by the way--that's the highest number on the disclosure forms, so for all we know he could have made $2 million a year). It doesn't seem so crazy to me that this raises some questions.
Conservatives will retort, "This just means you simpletons don't understand high finance." To which the common-sense retort is, "Well, actually, you are correct in the sense that most of us don't understand how a guy can simultaneoulsy leave a company and remain its CEO and continue to draw a salary that most Americans would consider pretty massive, and if that's all within the rules, then maybe there's something screwy about the rules."
If this whole episode opens a heretofore closed window to most Americans on the nature of the casino capitalism of the last 35 years, that's all to the good. If Americans react negatively to it and him, then maybe the elites will see that this go-go money culture from which they have so grandly profited isn't all positive.
Some Republicans are now calling for more transparency. This isn't going away.
