Even Mitt Romney admits Bain Capital 'didn't create' jobs

Priorities USA releases a new video mocking Mitt Romney for coming up with new number every time that he claims to have created jobs as CEO of Bain Capital:

Yeah, yeah, I know you're just so shocked to learn that Mitt Romney is so full of it on his claim to be a jobs creator that he can't even keep his numbers straight ... but you actually might be surprised to learn that in Mitt Romney's own words, he's blowing smoke:

When you ask, the question 'How many jobs did you create at Bain Capital?' the truth, is we invested in businesses that created the jobs. We didn't create them ourselves. They did. [3/13/12, KMOV, St. Louis, Mo.]

That's a rare moment of candor for Mr. Bain'and it's a tremendously important point. Romney's job creation number relies on giving him credit for every single job created at every single company in which Bain invested money, no matter how much or how little. That's like buying Apple stock and claiming to have created the iPad.

Take the case of Staples, at which Romney claims he created 90,000 jobs. Bain invested $2.5 million in the company in the late 1980s'and cashed out for $13 million in 1989. By all means, give Romney credit for having seen an opportunity early on and having made a profitable investment. But give him credit for creating 90,000 jobs? Are you kidding me?

To be fair, Bain wasn't always a passive investor. As the Priorities USA and the Obama campaign have been pointing out, there are numerous examples of Bain bustouts'cases in which Bain bought a company and took over its management, loading it up with debt, extracting millions, and letting it crash. And maybe there's some examples of Bain taking an active role and helping managing companies into a stronger position. But if so, Romney isn't talking about them.