(This story originally ran earlier today, Sunday, April 1, 2012 in my space as the Baltimore Liberal Examiner at Examiner.com.)
Let's play "pretendsies."
If somehow John Dillinger were alive today and running for President of the United States of America and it looked like a major party was about to give him their nomination, do you think that at some point some member of the media would work up the starch in his or her spine to look "Public Enemy #1" in the eye and ask him, point blank...
"But... didn't you used to rob banks?"
Of course someone would, wouldn't they? Is the corporate America media so corrput that they would ignore obvious criminal activity -- charged and uncharged, convicted and un-convicted?
One doesn't really have to wonder. They're doing it now.
In any of the debates, in any of his media availabilities, have you ever heard a reporter ask the former Governor of Massachusetts:
"Governor Romney, didn't you, through your company Bain Capital, rob hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans with your leveraged buyouts of companies that you and your associates, through fair means or foul, tore to pieces, selling off the pieces and pocketing the proceeds while these hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes, their hopes for the future? Governor Romney, are you not responsible for stealing the American Dream itself from so many, many people? And are you not still profiting from that thievery?"
Let's consider the Life and Times of Willard "Mitt" Romney, how he made his money, his known associations, and how he continues to enrich himself through activities that, if they are not criminal, are at the very least unethical and not the sort of thing a reasonable person would want in a major party candidate for the Presidency.
What has our mainstream media really revealed about Mitt's tenure at Bain Capital?
What do you, the voter, know about Mitt's involvement in the admittedly questionable activities of intertwined lawfirms that screwed investors out of billions of dollars... all sanctioned by a U.S. attorney who -- until he assumed that position -- was a top lawyer at one of the companies accused of screwing the stockholders, screwing the creditors of the companies that went bankrupt, filling their pockets with proceeds they did not have coming and did not deserve? Did any of that money find its way through other corrupt bankruptcy proceedings to holdings owned by Bain Capital? Did any of that dirty money find its way into Mitt Romney's pockets?
Is Mitt still filling his pockets? Did he ever really relinquish total control of Bain Capital like his bio indicates he did in 1999, or is he still pulling the strings?
Now that it seems ever more likely that Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, it's time for the Baltimore Liberal Examiner (and some of his friends) to do what the mainstream media will not do because they would lose their jobs if they tried.
We're going to take a good, close look at the financial dealings of people like Phillip Traub, Barry Gold, Colm Connoly and Willard "Mitt" Romney -- during his official time as head of Bain Capital through today. We will print nothing that we can not establish with substantiating links from impartial observers.
This is not a story that can be told in one day or be read in one sitting. We can and will print what we know and can prove, but there is so much more to know, so many more allegations that we will need to prove before sharing them with you. But doors are being opened and we're just now starting to peek inside.
We will explain it simply, naming names and breaking it down, tying all the pieces together so that when you step into the polls in November you will know what your choices really are. This is not some sort of witch hunt, like the effort to prove President Obama was born in Kenya. We do not have to manufacture evidence. It's all there. A matter of public record. What we need is a media that is not beholding to corporate interests to look at this evidence, to draw conclusions, to do what a free media is supposed to do in a free society, and that is to keep the electorate informed about issues that are vital to your day-to-day life.
Mitt Romney says he wants to run America like he ran Bain Capital. That should scare the socks off of your feet.
Coming up: Would Mitt Romney steal your child's teddy bear?