UPDATED BELOW
Mitt Romney and his right-wing media allies appear to be going into full-panic mode over the Obama campaign's increasingly successful efforts to define Romney as a hopelessly out-of-touch multimillionaire.
Obama is leading in swing states where the president's campaign and pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA have run ads attacking Romney's record as a corporate predator who put Americans out of work by sucking the life out of their companies and sending their jobs overseas.
[I]n toss-up states, 16 percent say Bain is a reason to support Romney, while 32 percent say it's a reason to oppose him. More people have an opinion on Romney's business record, too. In February, 36 percent said Romney cut jobs while 32 percent said he created them. Now 40 percent say he cut them and 36 percent say he created them.
Today, Romney began hitting back against the Obama attacks. Well, "hitting back" might be too strong a term. "Nanny-nanny boo boo" is more accurate:
No you’re the “outsourcer-in-chief.”
In what has become a signature move for Mitt Romney, Republicans are trying to rebut attacks against their nominee by accusing President Obama of doing the exact same thing. Or something vaguely related to it.
The substance (for want of a better term) of the Romney counter-slap is his claim that money from the American Recovery Act allegedly went to companies that employed some foreign workers.
In addition to the candidate's pushback, at least one right-wing media outlet is trying to help Romney deflect criticism of his personal finances, including questions about his unreleased tax returns, and the vast sums of money he is reported to have hidden away in tax havens such as Bermuda and Switzerland.
The Weekly Standard is out with a report that it apparently hopes will expose Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz as a hypocrite for demanding that Romney come clean about his finances. The website's scoop: that the DNC chair has some of her own money invested in "Swiss Banks, Foreign Drug Companies, and the State Bank of India:"
But disclosure forms reveal that in 2010, Wasserman Schultz invested between $1,001-$15,000 in a 401k retirement fund run by Davis Financial Fund. As the fund discloses, it is invested in the Julius Baer Group Ltd. and the State Bank of India GDR Ltd., as well as other financial, insurance, bank institutions.
The report does not appear to be a satire. The Weekly Standard is seriously suggesting there is an equivalence between a few thousand dollars in a managed 401k and hundreds of millions of dollars shielded from U.S. taxes in Swiss bank accounts and offshore shell corporations.
This panicked, flailing reaction tells you everything need to know about the narrative Obama is crafting against Romney: it's working.
UPDATE
Right on cue, the wingnut blogosphere is all, "Yeah, so THERE!!1!"
PJ Tatler:
If overseas investments are “toxic” for Romney, they’re also toxic for the Democrat Party chairman hand-picked for that role by President Barack Obama.
Daily Caller (Jim Treacher):
Overseas investments are bad except when they’re not. And one way to tell they’re okay is when they’re made by Democrats.
Oh, and DWS won’t release her tax returns, either. Again: she’s a Democrat. The same standard doesn’t apply to her. Duh.
Jammie Wearing Fools:
Nothing illegal, mind you, but considering the dogpile on Romney and anything investment or business overseas, the hypocrisy is delicious.
The Right Sphere:
Once again we have the usual “do as I say, not as I do” garbage from the left. It’s OK for her to do what she wants with her money, but somehow it’s not OK for Mitt Romney to do the same? Remember, this is a woman who refuses to release her own tax returns, so the hypocrisy is strong with this one.
I guess it would be a waste of breath to point out two things to these intellectual giants:
- Investing a couple thousand bucks in a 401k is in no way similar to hiding hundreds of millions of dollars from the IRS in offshore tax havens
- Mitt Romney is running for President of the United States, and the standard for transparency is higher for him than it is for a woman most Americans could not pick out of a lineup to save their lives