Nothing to See Here: Soledad O'Brien Sidesteps Obama's Hypocrisy on Romney and Bain
CNN's Soledad O'Brien has carried water for President Obama before,
and her "nothing to see here" attitude on Tuesday's Starting Point in
regards to the Obama's blatant hypocrisy made that all the more clear.
The night before, O'Brien's colleague Anderson Cooper grilled
the Obama campaign over the President's personal attacks on Mitt
Romney. Cooper maintained that Obama is hitting Romney's record at Bain
Capital while fund raising from another head of a private equity firm
that did business with Bain, thus committing a blatant act of hypocrisy.
Soledad all but ignored that case and focused simply on the validity of
Obama's attack ads. Her guest even brought up Cooper's report from the
night before, and Soledad offered a lame "that may be the case, but..."
response and promptly changed the subject. She later implied that the
ads are justified and asked "could this potentially provide a big
problem for Governor Romney?"
O'Brien spent the majority of the two segments during the 7 and 8 a.m.
hour giving the reasons behind Obama's attacks and questioning Romney's
line of defense.
[Video below. Audio here.]
Soledad asked if "you take companies and you buy them and you provide
opportunity for your shareholders which sometimes provides jobs and
sometimes kills jobs, isn't that not necessarily something you want to
necessarily run on?" she asked of Romney's time at Bain.
And she stood behind the attack on Bain's ownership of Ampad, even
though the Romney campaign said Bain relinquished control of the company
four years before financial difficulties hit. Bain still owned 36
percent of the company, she insisted.
"So, when you're talking jobs, then is it fine to point to Bain Capital
as something that can be the focus of a campaign, looking at where jobs
have been destroyed to some degree, at a company like Ampad?" she
asked.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on May 22 on Starting Point at 7:04 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But isn't the line that's critical there the
difference between venture capital and vulture capital, right?
Ultimately to me – I don't think anybody's arguing should America be a
capitalist nation, right? Genuinely, we're not having that conversation.
We're having the conversation about if you take companies and you grow
business and provide jobs, which everyone is running on, that's a good
thing, if, in fact, you don't necessarily do that, you take companies
and you buy them and you provide opportunity for your shareholders which
sometimes provides jobs and sometimes kills jobs, isn't that not
necessarily something you want to necessarily run on?
(...)
O'BRIEN: Right, so that brings us back, right, to the original premise
behind that ad and ultimately what this is about. Mitt Romney would say
as a businessman who worked in private equity, I am that person.
CAIN: I get it.
O'BRIEN: President Obama would say as a – as running the country for
the last x number of years, I look at what has been done through Bain
Capital and I think that's a bad thing. Ergo I am the person to run the
country. Right, those are the two competing arguments, which ultimately –
isn't that why the conversation is relevant, why having the discussion
about Bain actually is a relevant conversation?
(...)
O'BRIEN: Barbara Comstock is a Mitt Romney campaign adviser. Nice to
see you, Barbara. Thanks for being with us. Certainly appreciate it.
Cory Booker says he's furious and he was taken out of context. Is he
right?
BARBARA COMSTOCK, adviser, Romney campaign: Well, I think Cory Booker
was taken to the wood shed. And I think what was more interesting last
night, you saw Anderson Cooper asking David Axelrod about the hypocrisy
of Barack Obama starting this whole attack on private enterprise and
free enterprise on a day when he was having a fundraiser with private
equity.
O'BRIEN: And that may be the case, but my question was, was Cory Booker
right? He was creatively edited and was he taken out of context?
(...)
O'BRIEN: So, does that mean that a conversation about Bain and a
focusing of a campaign around Bain, which is what President Obama said,
you know, was really – he said, it's not a distraction. This is going to
be the focus of the campaign. Do you think that Governor Romney is fine
with that or thinks that that's not a good thing?
COMSTOCK: If Barack Obama wants to do that, let's look at his
investment at the Department of Energy where there are 64 companies that
the inspector general is investigating for what he calls the friends
and family plan, companies like Solyndra where the President wasted half
a billion dollars of taxpayer money –
O'BRIEN: So then, the governor is saying the record about Bain is
absolutely fair game in this campaign. Let's go do it. Is that what he's
saying?
COMSTOCK: I think what is fair game and what the American people want
to focus on is jobs. And this President doesn't have a record because
he's been wasting money on companies like Solyndra where he gave
corporate – you know, his corporate friends got money and that kind of
thing, and there were no jobs created. There were jobs destroyed --
O'BRIEN: So, then let's talk a little bit about jobs, because Bain
Capital had a statement that they put out. And they wrote this. "Our
control of Ampad ended in 1996, fully four years before it encountered
financial difficulties due to overwhelming pressure from 'big box'
retailers, declines in paper demand, and intense foreign price
pressures."
But really, Bain owned the company until 1999. I think they were the
majority stakeholder, right? So, 36 percent, I think, was the number
that they gave of what they owned in the company. And the "big box"
they're talking about was Staples, which was a company that's been
touted as a huge success by Governor Romney, not just some sort of
random "big box" company, but actually, Staples was the company.
So, when you're talking jobs, then is it fine to point to Bain Capital
as something that can be the focus of a campaign, looking at where jobs
have been destroyed to some degree, at a company like Ampad?
(...)
O'BRIEN: Let me stop you there. And hold on, Barbara. I'll get back to
you one second. But voters are not talking about the role of private
equity in the free market system.
(...)
O'BRIEN: Let me get a final question to Barbara before I let her go. At
the end of the day – and we've been debating this all morning, so we've
sort of been going back and forth on this – isn't the question going to
be about Bain was – is a company, private equity is about making money
for your shareholders.
And sometimes, though, shareholders are foundations, as you know, you
were discussing the Anderson's interview yesterday, and he was talking
about that. Sometimes, though, shareholders are pension funds, you know,
so – and sometimes, those shareholders are people who don't mind if
companies are blown up in order to make money. And at the end of the
day, isn't this going to -- could this potentially provide a big problem
for Governor Romney?
