So Mitt, were you lying then or are you lying now?

By Richard K. Barry

Bain Capital? I have no idea what you're talking about.

So, Mitt Romney filed papers with the SEC indicating he was the Chairman, CEO and President of Bain Capital from 2000 to 2002, and there are other documents that he still owned 100 percent of the company in 2002. The Romney campaign is quite focused on the need to argue that beside the legal documents indicating his leadership and ownership, he had nothing to do with the day-to-day workings of the firm from 1999 on. Romney wants to make this case because things were done at the firm during this period that would not reflect well on his candidacy. We all get that.

There is no doubt that he unequivocally left the firm in 2002 or that his name appeared on official documents as the head of the company between 1999 and 2002. Republicans argue that he was not responsible for decisions the company made in this period. Democrats argue that he was.

TPM makes the case for holding him responsible in this period by saying this:

For Romney to be truly off the hook politically for the stuff Bain was doing, he'd have to claim not lack of control, but lack of knowledge. And that’s just not going to wash with anyone. He could try going the "I didn't have even the slightest idea what the company I technically still owned was doing" route, but he’d be marking himself as either dishonest or incompetent.

And yet that's really his only out. Just a guess, but if, hypothetically speaking, he'd learned during the 1999-2002 stretch that Bain had made a practice of poisoning the water supply in a Midwestern factory town, he'd have severed all ties, legal and otherwise, with the company.

But that didn't happen. More likely, Bain went on doing what it had always done, and with Romney's tacit stamp of approval. So he owns it.

I think that makes sense. What also makes sense is that if Bain had been engaged in nefarious activities in violation of SEC regulations, I doubt the SEC would accept the excuse from Romney, the legal CEO, that he was no longer actively involved in running the company so they ought to leave him be. My guess is the regulators would have a good laugh at that.

I would think the SEC documents Romney signed are pretty weighty pieces of paper. I would also think Mitt Romney would not take such a chance with his finances, reputation or legal liability involved in completely distancing himself from knowledge of the activities of Bain Capital.

We can bracket for now the legal and ethical issues associated with Romney telling the SEC that he was head of the company while now claiming that he wasn't running it. That's sounds dicey too.

I know Republicans are in a panic over this, but does anyone seriously think it's credible that significant decisions were made at Bain in the 1999-2002 period of which Romney did not approve? It just doesn't sound possible.

In light of the fact that Romney has been so slow to release his tax returns, this is just another example of someone used to having his own way who doesn't feel he has to play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Twisting, bending and smashing the truth comes so naturally to W. Mitt Romney.

One other thing, there is desperation in the voices of the Republican pundits on the panel circuit over this. I think they know they've got a problem.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)