I already posted some of Mitt Romney's interview with Charlie Rose from this Monday night on PBS. Think Progress posted this portion where it looks like Romney is determined to help the Democrats with having an easy time making some negative campaign ads against him if he does end up being the Republican presidential nominee.
Romney Defends "Wall Street" And "Insurance Company Executives" From Obama’s Criticism:
Appearing on PBS last night with Charlie Rose, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested President Obama is risking the very prosperity of the country and the middle class when he criticizes Wall Street and insurance executives:
ROMNEY: He has been the most divisive president I’ve ever seen. He has attacked one American after another, one group after another. He creates these straw men and says that Republicans believe this terrible thing, and aren’t they awful. He went after insurance company executives, Wall Street, all these bad people he finds out there. Look, Americans are not going to be a powerful and vibrant economic engine with a powerful middle class if we attack one another.
Romney doesn’t seem to be concerned with whether there’s any merit to Obama’s criticisms or not; he objects to the mere fact that the president would criticize anyone. For instance, Romney’s defense ignores the fact that Wall Street helped cause the financial crisis and ensuring recession. Obama’s main “attack” on Wall Street was the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which has hardly hurt the industry. [...]
The comments likely won’t help Romney beat the rap off being “Mr. 1 percent.”
As they noted, Romney also defended his time at Bain Capital later in that same interview and "said that attacking Bain for laying off thousands of workers is almost tantamount to an attack on capitalism itself." As previously posted at this site, Mitt Romney is still raking in the dough from Bain to this day.
I'm not an economist. I'm just some working stiff that has a cursory understanding of economics at best, but for someone that the media keeps touting as being the candidate that "understands the economy" and claiming that Romney's "expertise" in business is supposed to be his strong point, it seems utterly ridiculous to me for someone to claim that saying something that hurts Wall Street and other executives feelings is going to somehow destroy the middle class.
It seems to me our politicians have done a good enough job of that already with outsourcing, globalization and a race to the bottom on wages and workers' protection, refusing to protect American jobs and manufacturing, union busting which Romney is so fond of like his fellow Republicans, and with refusing to ask the upper one percent to put some money back into the commons, our education system and our infrastructure. But hey, what do I know?
