Well, okay, I'll admit my headline is a bit hyperbolic and that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasn't actually saying anything remotely controversial ... but nine years ago, the Mitt Romney of 2003 made some remarks about corporations that the Mitt Romney of 2012 would say are tantamount to putting free enterprise on trial:
There are some, if you will, classical Republicans, and I don't want to be political here. The classical Republican approach is to say you know what makes America so great is our great corporations. And if we just clear the decks so that corporations can be more successful and give them more money, and make it easier for them to succeed. Well, then we will do even better on the world stage. I don't happen to subscribe to that traditional Republican caricature.
So to recap: If Mitt Romney says we shouldn't "clear the decks" for corporations, it's not an attack on free enterprise. And if Mitt Romney tells Newt Gingrich to return money that he earned as a lobbyist, that's not an attack on free enterprise, either.
But if somebody challenges Mitt Romney for profiting from the destruction of companies and jobs while he led Bain Capital, then that person is a dirty Communist apparatchik and a sworn enemy of everything that made America great.
And how does Mitt Romney justify such an obvious double-standard? Simple: He's running for office, for Pete's sake.