Romney's really bad week is gettting worse by the hour. This evening we have another "turn of the worm" report from Sabrina Siddiqui, a political writer at HuffingtonPost that Mitt Romney Helmed Olympics Outsourced Uniforms To Burma, a country with a reputation of notorious human rights violations. And, when the human rights communities complained the Olympic Committee's first reaction was to deny the uniforms were made in Burma, but said they were made in Myramar, which was the former name for Burma. A story that appears to have been broken previously here at Daily Kos, some time ago. I'm looking for links now. (Update: Found lots including Tomtech's Top Rec'd post two days ago - please see update)
So, for some here, the facts of this story may be familiar, but what is interesting is how it is making its way into the traditional media, by virtue of its connection to the Bain outsourcing issues.
But with regard to the reporting at HuffPo tonight, Romney's unwillingness to join in universal criticism of the outsourcing of U.S. uniforms to China on friday seemed curious to many -- a no brainer issue.
For the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has repeatedly promised on the trail to "get tough" on China, opposing the manufacturing seemed a likely stance, except that while at the helm of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Romney outsourced the production of torchbearer uniforms to Burma.
For Romney, the 2002 Olympics anecdote represents another instance of outsourcing under his stewardship, as President Barack Obama's reelection team continues to assail him for shipping jobs overseas while at private equity firm Bain Capital. It also exposes an embarrassing oversight in allowing the uniforms to be manufactured in Burma, which until just last year was controlled by a brutal military regime.
According to reports in 2002, the decision to outsource the torchbearer uniforms to Burma caused an uproar among human rights advocates and trade groups. It prompted the head of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to write a letter to the International Olympic Committee, stating that "No responsible organization or body should make use of products originating in Burma."
HuffPo credits Daily Kos for posting a picture of the Olympians wearing the uniforms "while carrying the Olympic torch to the Winter Games," so this appears to be yet another example of Daily Kos investigators leading the way to get facts into the mainstream media -- though sadly often only after length delays.
Perhaps, with the timing of the Bain outsourcing and Romney's denial of any responsibility while at Bain, this story's resurgence could not come at a better, or "worse" time, depending out whose perspective you take.
The American Anti-Slavery Group and the Free Burma Coalition launched a campaign to protest the uniforms and called on the IOC to apologize and “promise to never support -- indirectly or directly -- the Burmese regime."
Many Kossacks have been waiting for the next drip of scandal in the Bain outsourcing drama and this seems to be it as this iteration of reporting resonates with the peaking of the outsourcing scandal at while Romney was at Bain, and his unbelievable attempts this last week to deny he had anything to do with the management of Bain from 1999 to 2002.
Sabrina Siddiuqui reports Mitt Romney was not available for comments, so we must wait until tomorrow to see if Mitt Romney will try to deny that he had anything to do with the leadership of Olympics under his "leadership."
More popcorn anyone?
Mon Jul 16, 2012 at 10:46 PM PT: BTW, If you would like background on three articles I reviewed earlier this afternoon please check out,
Mitt Romney has a Painfully bad week says David Frum, "Walked into Bain Trap says Joe Trippi
Mon Jul 16, 2012 at 10:48 PM PT: I'm watching the rerun of tonght's Colbert Report which is hilarious, as was Jon Stewart. We could just rerun both these segments as our political ads until the election and clobber Romney.
Mon Jul 16, 2012 at 11:38 PM PT: Tomtech alerts us to this Last Word on this story from Lawrence Odonnel tonight.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Mon Jul 16, 2012 at 11:41 PM PT: Link to Tomtech's great comment I learned the LastWord clip from
http://www.dailykos.com/...
12:18 AM PT: Holy Smokes, I just used the DKos search function, which now works, and discovered Tomtech mentioned above has a whole top rec'd post on this from two days ago here.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
So many Romney outsourcing articles are coming out, I can't keep up with them all. Tomtech also has a great series of comments about this over the last two days.