Facts Don't Support Obama's Charges Against Romney

Well, Democrats certainly aren't ones to let facts get in the way of an epic smear.

But see David Gergen, in any case, at CNN (via Memeorandum):

Has Romney basically lied about when he actually departed Bain?

Has he tried to mislead the public or investors? Here we come to the heart of the recent controversy. I may be wrong but based on what we know so far, I would conclude that we do not have persuasive evidence to show that he has.

Romney has argued for years that after he was called in to rescue the Salt Lake City Olympics in February 1999, he turned his full attentions there and no longer exercised active management at Bain. The story is a complicated one because Bain was a complex partnership and because the company filed various SEC papers after February 1999 still listing Romney in various key roles, including CEO and chairman. But if one takes time to look behind the SEC filings, what emerges is much more supportive of Romney's statements.

When the story first broke Thursday in The Boston Globe suggesting that Romney and Bain had fudged, CNN asked if I would do some reporting. I reached two of the top people whom I know in the company and, on background, they told me the same story that Bain sources told CNN's John King: When the call came from the Olympics that February, Romney met with his partners and said he and wife, Ann, had concluded that they had to do this and as difficult as it would be for the partnership, he had to leave in a matter of several days.

That set off consternation within Bain because the company had exploded in size and Romney was not only CEO (or managing partner) but was also deeply tied into a variety of investments and partnerships. The partners had to turn quickly to reorganizing their teams and the way they ran their business. That was their priority.

Had they known that one day Romney would be running for president, they might have acted with equal haste on cleaning up the many filings and paperwork that bore Romney's name but at the time, they didn't think that was an urgent task. So, as the company slowly unwound its records, some papers from Bain continued to list Romney even though he had left the partnership.

A sloppy mistake? Yes. An attempt to mislead? The evidence so far doesn't show that. Also of note: At the time, it seemed that he might return from the Olympics to active management, but in any event, he did not. Secondly, I do not know of (nor is there any controversy suggesting) his involvement in other companies during that time. As the New York Times reports Monday, there was an expectation at first that Romney might return to active management of Bain so he did not sever his ownership ties right away -- an additional reason why his name was not struck from documents for a while. The Times account goes on to say there is no evidence that during this interim he was actively engaged in managing the firm.

Both partners with whom I spoke firmly and unequivocally said that after he physically left in February 1999, Romney no longer made decisions for Bain regarding investments, hiring, firing or any other management issues. Subsequent to that February, the firm in 2000 offered another round of financing and, according to Bain, the investors well understood that Romney was no longer actively managing the company.

Gergen has a lot more to say, including a call for Romney to release more tax documents and so forth. Be that as it may, I think this phase of the Obama attacks are played out. Romney's Bain record will simply become part of the larger Democrat attacks on the free market, which will play into voters' fears of economic uncertainty. It will also work to deflect attention from the administration's historically abysmal record on the economy. And as Gergen notes, Romney hasn't handled his response very well ---- even coming off unprepared. That means this period of the campaign is a turning point, and the left could actually get the upper hand. Again, not because of the facts. It's pure politics. And you've got to hit back twice as hard when progressives attack, because the only thing that will work is superior firepower.