Former Democratic Michigan governor turned Current TV commentator Jennifer Granholm got a much-needed education Sunday about the difference between Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain Capital and President Obama's forays into green energy investment.
"When Bain invested," said George Will on ABC's This Week, "it invests money that it gets voluntarily to be invested. When the president throws a half-billion dollars away on Solyndra, it's money taken away by the police power of the federal government from unwilling taxpayers" (video follows with transcript and commentary)
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CURRENT TV: I don't think Bain Capital is a side show, as the president says. This is the issue. This is the issue that he is running on.
(CROSSTALK)
LIZ CLAMAN, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Then why does he go to businesses that were helped by private equity?
GRANHOLM: That's not -- but that's the whole point, is that he's not going after free enterprise because he's attacking this man for his job experience. That would be like saying, you know, if you did a story I didn't like, free speech, I'm attacking free speech.
That's just not the case. He's attacking him for that experience, claiming that that experience is the experience that we should be looking to, to create jobs in America when it's clearly not.
GEORGE WILL: So, it would be fair for Romney to say, look at Solyndra, they laid off 1,100 people with no pensions, no severance, nothing else. And that's the result of the president's idea of green energy.
Indeed. Marc Thiessen had a fabulous piece at the Washington Post Thursday about how many jobs green energy companies Obama invested in have actually lost.
If liberal media members like Granholm think this is a winning strategy for Obama, they're going to be very surprised by the public's reaction. But I digress:
RON BROWNSTEIN, NATIONAL JOURNAL: And George, to your point, from before. I mean, those are the two competing frames that the candidates are offering for what's happening in America.
As you said, the Romney frame is that government is intruding on the private market and producing weaker results. The Obama frame is that the private market is not producing an economy that works for everyone.
GRANHOLM: And there is --
BROWNSTEIN: And that ultimately government has to be involved in trying to create more broadly shared opportunity.
GRANHOLM: There is a big difference with Solyndra, though. The president was not personally profiting. It was an effort to try to jump-start an industry and a business. You know, Romney was personally profiting and very well.
WILL: There's another difference, that is when Bain invested, it invests money that it gets voluntarily to be invested. When the president throws a half-billion dollars away on Solyndra, it's money taken away by the police power of the federal government from unwilling taxpayers.
Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.
Why is it liberal media members have far less disdain for a President wasting taxpayer funds on failed projects than private citizens investing their own money for personal gain?
Yes, that's a rhetorical question.
