More Bain pain: Mitt Romney clings to Rush Limbaugh, says President Obama 'is attacking capitalism'

Just when you thought Mitt Romney's Bain defense couldn't get any weirder or more absurd ... he embraces Rush Limbaugh's claim that President Obama is running a campaign against capitalism:

GRETCHEN CARLSON, FOX: Governor, would you go as far as Rush Limbaugh did yesterday in saying that this is the first president in modern time who is going to run a campaign against capitalism?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, it certainly sounds like that is what he is doing. There's no question but that he's attacking capitalism, in part, I think, because he doesn't understand how the free economy works. He's never had a job in the free economy. He either, as Vice President Biden, they spent their lives as either community organizer or as members of a political class, and frankly the American people understand that the free economy and free enterprise is tough, it's hard work.

When they hear that a business like Bain Capital was successful 80 percent of the time and five percent of its investments only went bankrupt, they say, "You know, that's a pretty good record. If all the president wants to do is talk about their failures, why, he's misrepresenting the nature of free enterprise."

First of all, on the Bain Capital controversy, the issue isn't how often Bain was successful making money. Even if Romney thinks making money on 80 percent of his investments is impressive, so what? Nobody is saying he wasn't good at what he did. What people are saying is that there's nothing about what he did at Bain Capital that demonstrates he's ready for the presidency. Moreover, the fact that he was able to make money even when the companies he invested in failed suggests that if anything, his experience at Bain bought him the wrong lessons. A president's job isn't to record a quarterly profit: it's to defend America and move forward with an agenda that helps all Americans.

Second, the notion that President Obama is an anti-capitalist president is really, really nuts. Since Obama took office, the stock market has soared'the Dow is nearly double what it was on January 21, 2009. Compare that with President Bush, under whose economic leadership the market fell. Or take a look at private sector job growth: despite inheriting Bush's economic collapse, private sector jobs have actually grown since Obama took office, including four million over the last two years. Under Bush, we lost more than six hundred thousand private sector jobs.

When President Obama or his campaign talk about Bain, they aren't attacking capitalism. They are attacking Mitt Romney. And the fact that Mitt Romney is desperately clinging to shit Rush Limbaugh said is yet more proof that he's utterly incapable of providing a coherent defense of his claim that being CEO of Bain Capital prepared him for the presidency.