Holy Shit: Washington Post Runs Op-Ed Asking Why Mitt Romney Isn't Richer, and If He Isn't Richer, Doesn't That Disqualify Him From the Presidency?

Oh dear.

Guess the debate and the ensuing polls are really panicking the liberals, eh?

Mitt Romney is worth $250 million. Why so little?

Mitt Romney is indisputably a very rich man. And if he is elected president on Nov. 6, he will become one of the wealthiest people ever to hold the office.

But exactly how wealthy is Romney? The figure that gets tossed around is $250 million in net worth — meaning the total value of his assets, financial and others, minus any debts.

Mitt Romney's $250 million net worth is much smaller than that of the other big players in the private-equity and leveraged buyout business, as listed in the latest Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.

Only $250 million? Really?

It’s a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune (private equity), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s) and the wealth of his peers in that business (mostly billionaires), Romney should be worth a good bit more than that.

Why isn’t he?

...

The article then goes through his listed assets, suggesting that Romney might be understating his wealth, based on... well, nothing, really.

It then tries to dream up reasons why Romney shouldn't be richer. It doesn't credit any of them for being true. But one of the reasons pretty much explains it all -- the private equity market took off, and entered a "Golden Age," the year after Romney left Bain.

That pretty much ends the matter, doesn't it? The first billion is the hardest, and Bain only made its first billion right around the time Romney left. After that, Bain racked up the billions; but the first one was the tough one.

And then Romney left to pursue a career of public service.

But the writer is unconvinced.

Leaving us with two possibilities-- either Romney is lying about his wealth, or Romney is stupid and cannot be our President.

Does it really matter if Romney is worth $250 million, $1 billion or more? Rich is rich after all, right? I think it does, politically as well as substantively.

Politically, the alternatives are not great. If he were perceived as the first real billionaire to run for president, it would only exacerbate popular doubts about how someone living so removed from the concerns of average Americans — or even just 47 percent of them — could effectively represent them.

And if he is not a billionaire, doesn’t it suggest that he was not a great private-equity investor after all, thus torpedoing his claim to understand how to create jobs and get the economy back on track?

Something to keep in mind on Nov. 6.

I think we should all rise from our seats and applaud the Washington Post for this.

There is hackery, there is partisanship, and then there is... this.

This is resplendent.

Congratulations, Washington Post.

You are now officially beyond mockery.

posted by Ace at 06:56 PM

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