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Jewish World Review Jan 17, 2012/ 22 Teves, 5772 Digging for Romney dirt futile By Tom Purcell
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I've been a private investigator a long time, but my last assignment really took the cake. I was hired to find any scandalous actions committed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And here's what puzzled me at first: I was hired by a Romney supporter. But I needed the dough, so I took the case. I began my investigation with the lowest-hanging fruit: money. Surely, a man as rich as Romney cut some corners along the way. According to his official biography, he hails from humble origins. His father began his career by apprenticing as a lath-and-plaster carpenter, then worked his way up to heading American Motors and eventually became governor of Michigan. The old man had the means to send his son to fine schools. Mitt Romney earned dual degrees from Harvard's law and business schools, then became a business consultant. Failing companies paid him to turn them around. He showed some aptitude for doing just that and in 1984 founded an investment firm, Bain Capital, to buy struggling companies -- and turn them around he did. He became a very rich man. I talked to old business colleagues and scoured old financial records. If there were improprieties, I couldn't find them. The only thing I thought I could pin on him was use of a company phone to make a personal long-distance call to his wife -- but then I found evidence that he'd reimbursed the firm $1.28 for the call. I shifted gears -- to his personal life. Surely a man with all that money could afford to keep a girl or two on the side. I began shadowing the guy from morning until night, at home and on the road, campaigning. No luck. He appeared to genuinely love his wife. He met her in elementary school. He spent all his free time with her, their kids and grandkids. But one night as I shadowed him, he woke at 3 a.m. I hoped to catch him sneaking out to a lady friend, only to discover him going to the kitchen to get his wife a glass of water. Still, I wasn't buying it. It's the upright, clean-living types like Romney who often have skeletons in their closets. Gambling. Drinking. Prescription drugs. There had to be something. I dug harder. I looked through more records. I talked to more people. The time came for me to report back to my client, the Romney supporter. "What did you find?" he said. "What about the dog story?" That one is making the news -- again. In 1983, Romney secured his dog -- in a special cage -- to the roof of his station wagon for a long vacation drive. "The dog survived the trip just fine," I said. I could see the disappointment in my client's face. "What about hiring illegal immigrants?" he asked. "Romney hired a landscaping company that had hired illegal immigrants. He never directly hired illegal immigrants." The Romney supporter was beside himself. "We have to find something better than dogs and landscaping companies!" he said. "Pollster John Zogby says Romney comes across as too perfect and wooden to voters. Zogby says a scandal would make him more human." I nodded. "At this point," the client continued, "it appears that Romney is our best hope of unseating President Obama -- our best hope of tax, entitlement and spending reform, which we need to keep our country from going over a cliff. Please tell me you found some Romney dirt!" "Well, he once abandoned his station as a school-crossing guard in the sixth grade." Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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© 2012, Tom Purcell |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
