This Bain thing is getting weird. And by weird I mean “self-immolating for Democrats.”
- Point: [Atlanta Mayor Kasim] Reed said on NBC’s Sunday political broadcast he was alarmed by the internal Democratic skirmish over whether or not President Barack Obama should attack his GOP rival’s business career, likening the prospect of campaigning without the volley to fighting “with one hand behind his back.” “[F]or Democrats to be having a conversation about whether this is fair game,” Reed said in yesterday’s “Meet the Press” roundtable, “is unacceptable.”
- Counter-point: …Reed neither disclosed nor explained why, if he thought Bain Capital was so horrible, he hired two high-level employees–former Chief Operating Officer (COO) Peter Aman and current Deputy Chief Operating Officer Hans Utz–immediately after the two had been working at Bain. Aman, a Partner at Bain & Company, took a two-year leave of absence from Bain, in order to work as COO, which is essentially a Deputy Mayor position, under Mayor Reed, from the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2011.
Note, by the way, that the second link is from a hardcore right-wing site called… Atlanta Progressive News. The APN is apparently upset with Mayor Reed because he – like many, many, many mayors across the United States – is desperately trying to balance budgets bloated out of all proportion by bloated public sector union pension obligations. If you read between the lines and dismiss the liberal agitprop, it appears what happened was that Atlanta instituted pension freezes and reforms last year in order to eliminate budget shortfalls; which makes Mayor Reed’s blatant hypocrisy doubly disappointing. It’s one thing to attack the other side unfairly; it’s quite another to attack the other side for advocating policies and methodologies that you yourself used to save your city.
But, hey, everything for the Democratic party, nothing for the country. Is that how it goes with you, Kasim Reed?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Ironically, the two Bain executives in question are reportedly both Democrats. Or at least contributors to Democrats.
…
One wonders why.
*Just to note: “Bain & Company” and “Bain Capital” are two separate, but sister, companies that were both founded by Romney. There is no such thing as a ‘Good Bain’ and a ‘Bad Bain,’ although God knows somebody will probably try to argue that at some point…