(Larry Downing/Reuters)
Speaking about his jobs record at Bain Capical, Mitt Romney wants you to know that he
feels your pain, unemployed people:
“I have experienced first-hand the change in people’s lives as they lose employment… I understand that in the way, I think, a lot of people in my circumstances do not understand it because I’ve served as a pastor in my church and worked with people who are out of work. I know the huge human cost that’s associated with an enterprise going out of business,” said Romney.
This represents progress of a sort: Romney is no longer claiming to be unemployed. That said, having known an unemployed person doesn't mean you have "experienced first-hand" anything about unemployment. It's like how you don't say "I have a friend who died of cancer, therefore I have experienced death from cancer first-hand." You have some first-hand information, maybe. But experienced? No, your friend is dead and you are alive and what Mitt Romney has experienced is not unemployment but instead continuing to make millions of dollars from a company he retired from 13 years ago. Poor guy. He's experienced such a rough time of it, first-hand.