Now Cinton Undercutting Obama on Bain?

      With friends like these who needs enemies? And with Democrats like these who needs Republicans? Now Clinton is going out and making campaign ads for the GOP. Last week it was Cory Booker. Yet Clinton doesn't seem to get it. He complains that his words have been twisted:

     "I said, you know, Governor Romney had a good career in business and he was a governor, so he crosses the qualification threshold for him being president," Clinton said. "But he shouldn't be elected, because he is wrong on the economy and all these other issues.

    "So today, because I didn't attack him personally and bash him, I wake up to read all these stories taking it out of context as if I had virtually endorsed him, which means the tea party has already won their first great victory: 'We are supposed to hate each to disagree.' That is wrong."

     http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/06/clinton-on-romney-record-praise-my-words-were-twisted-125074.html

    Honestly I just find Clinton's words mystifying. I mean he may have not endorsed Romney but he certainly undercut Obama in a big way. What is going on? Are all these Democrats this intimidated by private equity? Even this canard about not hating those with whom we disagree is silly. Does Rush Limbaugh spend every day prefacing his Obama bashing with "but he's a  good guy with a sterling record?"

    Clinton seems to have walked into the same trap where you have to treat Romney's experience at Bain with kid gloves. I've always been a Clinton man but what sense does it make to say stuff like this?

    "I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say 'This is bad work. This is good work,'" Clinton said. "The man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold."

      Where are the Republicans saying Obama has a sterling record?

      Supposedly Clinton thinks his comments were twisted because after talking about how sterling Romney's business career was he added that people shouldn't support him because he has the wrong ideas. Of course no one is going to look at those throw away comments again but only the part where he lauded Romney.

      Why is any push back about Bain attacking private equity as such? Even if Clinton thought this is the wrong tact what did he hope to gain by saying so publicly? If he really is sincere about helping the President win re-election wouldn't this be at best something you talk about behind closed doors?

       And Obama has to be able to attack Romney over Bain because Romney is using Bain to somehow prove that he has this deep "understating of the economy." You have to be able to push back and make the case that running Bain Capital doesn't necessarily mean you understand best what the economy needs. If Obama can't push back at all against this narrative what chance does he have? It's like his so-called friends like Clinton and Booker are trying to de-claw him.

      If Clinton's strategy is that any attempt of the President to defend himself is some kind of attack on private equity then his predictions that he thinks Obama will win this race by 5 to 6 points are hollow indeed.