Things are starting to heat up in the US of A; this is a really tough ad from Barack Obama:

And another one:

Photo: Flickr / Talk Radio News Service

Obama has every right to call into question Mitt Romney’s very questionable history at Bain Capital, and how his enormous wealth, while not in and of itself a bad thing, has made Romney prone to acting unreasonably or in an unbecoming fashion. This from a reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

What troubles me about Romney is that he is too rich, powerful and important to be asked to follow the same rules of disclosure that an ordinary civil servant follows. He has more in common with a Russian oligarch than a presumptive American government official. He is applying to the people of the United States for the job of leader, but he acts like his immense wealth and power put him above everyone else as regards commonplace expectations of transparency, in even a low-level official.

Romney also seems to be guilty of the same thing Phillip Coorey described of Tony Abbott in today’s SMH:

Should Tony Abbott win the next election, his first week in office, by any measure, is going to be a busy one. So far, the Opposition Leader has promised that within a week of being elected, he will have legislation drafted to repeal the carbon price, establish a commission of audit into the nation’s finances, phone the President of Nauru to reopen the detention centre there and travel to Jakarta to confront the Indonesians over people smuggling. [...]

Even if the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is free at a moment’s notice, such bilateral visits take weeks to organise. On this point alone, a week-one visit to Jakarta starts as the odds-on favourite for Abbott’s first broken promise.

Romney is going to scrap this, reverse that, etc. It’s simply not possible. They’re campaigning, sure, but don’t be downright dishonest about what you’ll be able to achieve and timeframe in which you’ll be able to achieve it.

(That last link via Astrid)