The things we do for Mitt

First the video…

Now we’ll let John Podheretz (of all people) explain:

At first blush, this seems like a genuinely great campaign ad — the story of how Mitt Romney basically closed down his business, Bain Capital, in 1996 when the daughter of one of his partners went missing in New York City and Romney sent dozens and finally hundreds of employees to New York to engage in a massive search through the streets for her. It was indeed a selfless and noble thing to do. However, the ad implies Melissa Gay had been kidnapped or something equally sinister, and that is not what happened. As a quick search of the New York Times and Boston Globe archives reveals, she went missing after she traveled to New York from Ridgefield, Conn., on her own, took Ecstasy at a concert on Randalls Island, ended up at a party under the Whitestone Bridge in The Bronx, met a boy there who took her to his house in New Jersey, and stayed with him for a few days, too embarrassed (I would wager) to call her parents and have them come get her. No charges were filed against the boy, which suggests her presence in his house was consensual. I’m sure it was a nightmarish time for her parents, and it was unquestionably was a noble thing Romney did to step in and direct the resources of his firm, including its employees, to search for her. But a) she wasn’t in need of “saving” in the way the ad’s narrative implies and b) there’s no evidence in the open record that the Bain Capital search, wonderfully well-intentioned, was responsible for Melissa’s safe return to her family.

Now let’s get down to brass tacks. First off, I guess you have to give credit where credit is due. Romney, along with the other directors of Bain Capital decided to shut down their leveraged buy-out, job-shedding, Grand Cayman tax-sheltering ways for a few days because one of his greed-head partners lost one of his seven kids (a fourteen year-old girl, no less) in New York City. While I find Robert Gay’s admission that he is a shitty father somewhat refreshing, I think it reflects an admirable amount of loyalty on Gay’s part to publicly admit his shortcomings, which is no doubt no Mittigated by the knowledge that Bain Capital has the potential to grow exponentially with Romney as the President, in much the same way that KBR/Halliburton has benefited from Dick Cheney’s latest career stop. But, you know, without the rape.

Well played, Bain Capital. A little bit of personal pain for a big payoff down the road. That’s the Bain Way.