Romney is running away from Bain for the period from 1999 onward, and putting it front and center before that point. It makes no sense for him to suggest that he didn't have anything to do with the off-shoring of American jobs and bankruptcies at that point, when he was raking in huge money from the activity and he certainly didn't disapprove of it. Knowing how to make yourself and your partners wealthy is not a qualification for becoming president, especially if the way you made yourself and your partners wealthy was by privatizing profit and socializing loss. Taxpayers had to step in when pensions were lost at those companies, taxpayers had to step in to support workers who lost their jobs. Romney has never demonstrated that he cares at all about a big-picture view of the economy and the fate of hardworking, wage-earning Americans.

Here's the McCain file on Mitt Romney from the 2008 campaign... Enjoy! http://cdn2.dailycaller.com/2012/01/McCain-2008-Oppo-File-on-Romney.pdf

Romney ran a large organization that involved lots of people and projects, so to imagine he could just close the door in 1999 and walk away is absurd. Was he involved day-to-day? Likely not, but it is impossible to accept that he was not at least consulted on issues that could change the company's bottom line by tens of millions of dollars. /\/\/\ What's the point? He ran a business that made a fortune, and as the saying goes, if you look deep enough into any fortune you will find blood. In this case it is the blood of workers who lost their jobs in the name of 'efficiencies'. That is simply how Bain made money, however you choose to spin or parse it. /\/\/\ Does running Bain, or even misrepresenting his role there, disqualify him from being POTUS? No, but neither does it qualify him. Business is not politics, and the self-proclaimed businessmen who have occupied the White House have ranged from knaves to disasters for the people. He will be no different.

Everyone should read what Bain did to KB Toys, based in Pittsfield. KB Toys was purchased and taken private in 2000 by the leveraged buyout firm of Bain Capital for $305 million, Bain announced the purchase on Dec. 8, 2000. Only $18 million of the purchase money was cash, the rest was borrowed against the assets of the company. Sixteen months after the buyout, Bain Capital paid itself $85 million in dividends (a 372% return on their investment) in 2002. Two years later, due to increasing competition from national discount chains such as Wal-Mart and Target and its enormous debt, on January 14, 2004, K·B Toys filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed 365 stores. Bain commented that nothing that they did was "improper". Not improper? Ask the investors that got screwed and the employees that got the spear.

Obama needs to come clean on Fast and Furious and that he had no involvement in the murder of a Federal agent. We agree that a sitting President's openness and integrity involving a murder is much more important but the writer is silent on this.

An absolutely DISHONEST article. Hey, Steve. In return for getting more answers about Mitt's past history, why don't you ask a FEW QUESTIONS about Barack Obama's past history. LIke.. Why is Barack Hussein Obama's past history SEALED? Is this due to some NATIONAL SECURITY issues? And why is Holder's involvement with Fast and Furious SEALED? How did Barack get into Harvard, anyway?-----------------You need to start asking those questions, and ask them NOW.-----If you REFUSE to do so, then you are NOT a journalist. You are an overpaid PREACHER!

The President of the United States got into Harvard because he is very smart, but perhaps you just can't understand that. Past history sealed? Perhaps this will help: "The Paranoid Critical Method: When an overall theory becomes the driving force for reading the world; every successive phenomenon is taken as a confirmation of the original (preconceived) idea. According to the financier and essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb, such over-interpretation is biologically ingrained: narrative fallacy, the predilection for good stories over facts, arises because the human mind more easily stores narratives (patterns) than disconnected units of information. To resist this tendency, Taleb encourages close, sustained observation rather than the hasty adoption of theories. /\/\/\ The Globe may be slanted, but it not terminally biased, unlike some other 'news' outlets, preacher.

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish with this garbage every morning.

... maybe because this not an article about Fast & Furious and that this is the Business section of the newspaper.

Mitt just can't be straight about himself, or in his attacks on Obama Is he was truly on leave, but needed to stay associated, wouldn't he have taken $1/year? $100,000/year suggests someone who, at least, is attending board meetings. He has admitted to coming to Boston from time to time to deal with business matters that, of course, he won't identify.

Did you happen to notice that the writer totally buys Mitt's story? What's your complaint, exactly? If you believe Mitt, which the writer apparently does, then he left management duties behind while still listing himself as the owner and CEO and paid himself a nice salary with company funds for doing nothing. I mean, that's his story, right?

I think he's here just to stop conversation.

The man simply does not know how to be truthful. He's never been in a situation before where his money couldn't change the truth as people remember it.

Romney had better cut this guy loose. He's becoming unhinged.

Now put that in the context of running the country and see where Willard will have us in two years. But hey, it won't be his fault, will it? It never is.

The title of the column says it all about Romney's entire business and political career.

why make this complicated? romney was CEO until at least 2002....he was drawing a check....he was affiliated with bain way beyond 1999....romney says he left bain in 1999.....conclusion.....romney continues to be who has been all his life....a liar and a fraud. Throw in evading military service by suspiciously going to France for 30 months while the Draft was going strong makes him a generational coward...

sounds like the tea party surfacing from some blow hole....Jesus buddy....you ought to look around to see if Rod Serling is in the corner behind you...

yup...just like dik cheney explained why he outed a CIA operative....Valerie Plaim

do you stutter?

Mitt Romney speaks the same kind of Wall Street double talk that we have heard for years. He is not a business man like his father he is a financier. He should be running for Fed chief. He'd fit right in.

Based on the posts thus far, I'm clearly in the minority but can anyone name a recent candidate who didn't obfuscate some of the details of his or her past in some way? Democrat or Republican, they can each be dissected down to a point where there is no satisfactory response for the questioner. As far as this particular subject... You can certainly have a founder/CEO/whatever who gets paid to take regulatory and financial responsibility for an organization but assigns operational authority to others. It happens every day. However, Mitt Romney does need to get out in front of some of these issues and I do blame his handlers for continuing to give him bad advice to avoid some of these things but does he owe me the minutia of what he did over a decade ago in order to ensure the survival of the firm and its massive investments? Nope.

You sound bitter. His money is indeed relevant in that he made himself wealthy while growing many companies. I know what your next argument will be on that last one but if you look at his time in office here in MA, while not perfect (ha, whose is??) his money was never a factor. He did many positive things while operating in a politically toxic environment. Perfectly executed? No, but I have to give him credit. He swam with sharks when he could have well afforded to be on the beach.

@whaaaaa? It's an issue of integrity. The author choses to pose the question of integrity therefore Obama's is fair game as well. If you are going to dress down rsox2007, then why haven't you also told other posters who are of similar mind as yourself that the subject matter they posted (service record, etc) isn't relevant?