Fred Kaplan's take on Romneyshambles
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/hes-no-averell-harriman/
Fred Kaplan has what I think is the best take so far on Romneyshambles:
The thing that Krauthammer doesnt get is that Romney is not the sort of businessmanthat his brand of capitalism is not the sort of enterprisethat requires even the most elementary understanding of diplomacy, courtesy, or sensitivity to other peoples values, lives, or perceptions.
The American capitalists-turned-statesmen of an earlier generationDouglas Dillon, Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Dean Acheson, Paul Nitzetook risks, built institutions, helped rebuild postwar Europe, befriended their foreign counterparts: in short, they cultivated an internationalist sensibility at their core. Whatever you think of their politics or Cold War policies generally (and there is much to criticize), financiers formed an American political elite in that era because finance (through the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, the IMF, and so forth) was so often the vehicle of American expansionism.
By contrast, private-equity firms, such as Bain Capital, where Romney made his fortune, tend to view their client companies as cash cows, susceptible to cookie-cutter formulas from which the firms partners reap lavish fees, almost regardless of the outcome. Their ends and means breed an insularity, a sense of entitlement, a disposition to view all the worlds entities through a single prism and to appraise them along a single scale.