Romney can't explain Bain

Mitt Romney’s latest campaign strategy can pretty much be boiled down to the old schoolyard taunt, “I know you are, but what am I?” Team Romney just launched ads accusing the Obama campaign of lying in ads asking Romney to explain his conflicting statements about Bain.

The questions surrounding Romney’s Bain holdings continue to grow. The Boston Globe discovered more Bain SEC filings stating Romney was sole owner of Bain as late as 2002. His Massachusetts disclosure filings state “he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.”

Yet Romney and Bain continue to insist he had nothing to do with the corporation after 1999. So did Bain pay him $100K a year just to sign legal documents falsely stating the exact opposite? Is this what conservatives mean when they tell me the filthy rich “work hard” for their money? And then there’s this:

The Globe found nine SEC filings submitted by four different business entities after February 1999 that describe Romney as Bain Capital’s boss; some show him with managerial control over five Bain Capital entities that were formed in January 2002, according to records in Delaware, where they were incorporated. [...]

And financial disclosure documents Romney filed in Massachusetts show that he was paid as a Bain Capital executive while he directed the Olympics.

He was paid a six figure salary by Bain the whole time he ran the Olympics and in 2002 he told the state Ballot Law Commission that “his separation from Bain in 1999 had been a “leave of absence” and not a final departure.”

In other words, Romney is telling the voters he had no idea what Bain was doing after February 1999 even though he was listed as sole owner and stockholder while drawing a six figure salary from them for years after and four other mysterious business entities were incorporated in conjunction with Bain during that time. Remind me again why we’re supposed to trust his “business experience” if he didn’t even know what his corporation was doing in his name?

The Romney campaign announced it will demand the Globe retract the story, but they’re just reporting what the documents say and asking the appropriate questions. There is an easier way for Romney to resolve the discrepancies between his campaign statements and his legal filings. Rather than trying to browbeat the media into covering up for him, he could just release the last ten years of his tax returns as every serious candidate for president has done since his own father set the precedent.