An Inconvenient Doof

Mitt Romney went to the site of Solyndra, the solar company that received stimulus money but still went bankrupt, as a sign that the Obama administration's green jobs initiative was nothing more than "crony capitalism".  Unfortunately for Mitt, not only is the charge he's throwing around not true by admission of his own spokesman, it turns out as Governor of Massachusetts he had his own "crony capitalism" problems with now-bankrupt solar companies taking government money and going under.

A Bay State solar panel developer that landed a state loan from Mitt Romney when he was Massachusetts governor has gone belly up — a day after the GOP presidential hopeful ripped President Obama’s green-energy investments.

Lowell-based Konarka Technologies announced late yesterday that it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate.

“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”

The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.

And on Thursday the GOP candidate was stumping outside the shuttered Solyndra solar-panel factory in California, blasting the Obama administration’s $535 million loan as a symbol of “crony capitalism.”

“If Romney gets a little bit of heat because he participated in some of these policies at a point in time, it’s all fair in the world of politics,” said state Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton). “He’s criticizing on one hand, he’s got to take criticism on the other.”

A Romney spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Oops.  Mitt has his own Solyndra, it seems.  I'm betting you won't be hearing about how Mitt Romney wasted taxpayer money and lost jobs, right?

I have no idea why Romney even bothered to bring this up.  Any discussion about how jobs were lost under President Obama's "failed stimulus" has to then encompass the tens of thousands of jobs Romney wiped out as CEO of Bain.  It's a 100% losing subject for him with swing voters at the very least.

Pretty stupid move if you ask me.