Republican Candidates Fall For Smear, Again

Some people never learn. These people are called failing Republican candidates. This time the media smeared Mitt Romney and like a pack of jackasses these candidates bought into it hook, line and sinker and promptly set about blasting Romney. . . and capitalism. Ug.

Here’s the set up. The Washington Post and other liberal outlets reported the other day that Mitt Romney said he likes to fire people. In fact, as presented by the leftist Post, the quote reads: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

That sounds kind of Grinchy. But it’s not actually what Romney said. Here’s what Romney said:

“I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”

This is not what the Post described it as. Romney is not saying he likes firing people. He is saying he likes having choices as a consumer. He likes having the ability to change companies when he doesn’t like the service being provided and he wants Americans to have that power when it comes to health insurance companies. This is how all Americans think.

Of course, this didn’t stop the idiots from jumping on the liberal smear-version.

Rick Perry, who really is proving to be a total dipsh*t, turned the “I like to fire people” portion of the quote into a ringtone that people could download. Then he channeled Karl Marx and said this about Romney’s time at Bain:

“Allowing these companies to come in and loot the, loot people’s jobs, loot their pensions, loot their ability to take care of their families and I will suggest they’re just vultures. They’re vultures that sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass. They leave with that and they leave the skeleton. I don’t think they want someone who has killed jobs in South Carolina on the altar of making more money for themselves and their company.”

It doesn’t even make sense what Rick is saying, how could Romney make money buying companies and letting them fail? This is Oliver Stone “I know nothing about finance but I hate it” thinking. But even worse, this is Marxism. Rick is criticizing the very idea of capitalism here. He is saying that somehow it’s wrong (1) to buy another company, (2) to fire employees, and (3) to seek profit.

Gingrich piled on, saying: “If somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company and then leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that’s not traditional capitalism.” This is, of course, nonsense as well because no one gives a company away for nothing so someone else can suck millions of dollars out of it. Huntsman jumped on this too just as stupidly.

The Club for Growth, the driving force behind much of modern economic conservatism, blasted these attacks:

“[The] attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting. Because of the efforts of Bain Capital, major companies like Staples, Domino’s Pizza, and the Sports Authority now employ thousands of people and have created billions in wealth in the private economy. Attacking Governor Romney for participating in free-market capitalism is just beyond the pale for any purported ‘Reagan Conservative.’”

Ron Paul also has properly defended Romney.

“I think they’re wrong. I think they’re totally misunderstanding the way the market works. They are either just demagoguing or they don’t have the vaguest idea how the market works. . . You save companies, you save jobs when you reorganize companies that are going to go bankrupt. And they don’t understand that.”

Gingrich, by the way, finally backed away from attacking the “I like to fire people” quote claiming that he didn’t know it had been taken out of context, but he has yet to repudiate his sudden embrace of Marxism.

This is frustrating. Once again, these candidates fall for an MSM smear without ever bothering to ask whether there is any truth to the smear. What’s worse, they knee-jerk attack Romney by blasting capitalism. All this does is reinforce liberal propaganda -- capitalism is evil and heartless and profit is bad. This is shameful and it hurts conservatism.

It’s no wonder 58% of Republicans want more choices.

Romney, by the way, had a devastating response to Gingrich and Perry:

“It is no surprise that, having spent nearly half a century in government between them, Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry have resorted to desperate attacks on a subject they don’t understand. We expect attacks on free enterprise from President Obama and his allies on the left — not from so-called ‘fiscal conservatives. Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry seem to think that running against the private sector is the way to revive their floundering campaigns.”

Yep.