I think I may have been a little hasty...

...in my judgement of Mitt Romney and his record at Bain Capital.

Last night I read "Four Pinocchios for 'King of Bain' " in the Washington Post. If you were persuaded, like I was, that Mitt Romney had acted dishonorably at Bain, you really need to read this piece. The final paragraph sums it up nicely:

Romney may have opened the door to this kind of attack with his suspect job-creation claims, but that is no excuse for this highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital. Only one of the four case studies directly involves Romney and his decision-making, while at least two are completely off point. The manipulative way the interviews appeared to have been gathered for the UniMac segment alone discredits the entire film.

Then, I opened my New York Times this morning to see the front page article, "Town, Cast as Romney's Victim, Says, Huh?" It reports:

It was here in a corner of the state not far from the North Carolina border that Bain Capital, the private equity firm led by Mitt Romney, closed a factory that produced photo scrapbooks. The decision put 150 people out of work. Mr. Romney’s company profited.

There is a problem, though. Here in Gaffney, where deeply held Christian beliefs often matter more than jobs, few remember the Holson Burnes photo album plant, let alone the devastation its closing is alleged to have caused back in 1992.

“I have been here all my life,” said Ed Elliott, who sells insurance. “I’m 59 years old, and I’ve never heard of the plant.”

That Bain’s actions carry little resonance in a community whose woes have been seized on by presidential candidates testifies to the impact of the campaigns’ opposition research and their willingness to exploit a convenient storyline. Here in Gaffney, the focus is a little embarrassing for residents who do not know what all the fuss is about.

So I guess the moral of the story is that Mitt Romney's record at Bain may be a little more complicated than I had thought. But I'm confident that journalists will be digging into his career over the next eleven months or so. By November we should all have a clearer picture of his activities at Bain.

Although I remain a big supporter of President Obama and believe he deserves four more years in the White House, I hope -- I really hope -- to be, above all else, an honest seeker of truth. If Romney deserves to be bashed, I'll be happy to bash him. But it's gotta be real.