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Joe Carter writes, "Whether he should be criticized for doing so is debatable, of course, but Romney has definitely been responsible for layoff when he worked for Bain Capital" and sends along this link to a New York Times story linking to a Huffington Post page with Ted Kennedy commercials starring disgruntled employees fired from a company owned by a company Romney's Bain Capital bought. Romney, according to the Times, denies he had anything to do with the firings, but adds:

"Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient," he said. "My job was to try and make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong."

I don't know exactly what that means except, as Carter notes, it might've been more than the Guatemalans. Still, it all seems pretty murky and my research and interviews the past couple years nevertheless overhwhelmingly suggest Romney to be the guy who hired people, not the guy who laid them off.

UPDATE: MEA CULPA: I'm getting a lot of email over this post. It's funny, it's always the bits you never imagine will cause any trouble that do. The nature of Bain Capital's business--including acquiring and turning around companies--very likely ended with layoffs somewhere along the line. If I had put "overwhelmingly" here in the right place, it would have made clear I was attempting to suggest Romney helped launch many national chains that have employed many, many people, not that there were never any layoffs. So...I apologize, dear readers! If I had thought out the implications of my initial laugh line out a little better there wouldn't have been all this commotion. Who knows? Maybe for some people Romney does look like a guy who laid them off.

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