He was right the first time.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, that is — before Team Obama tightened the screws and forced him to walk it all back.
Appearing on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Booker — a Democrat and firm Obama supporter — issued a startling blast at a key presidential campaign theme.
Specifically, he described as “nauseating” the public attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.
He’s right, of course. Bain, he continued, “has done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.”
Indeed, he added, “it’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. . . I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity.”
That was Sunday morning.
By Sunday night, Booker had released a four-minute You Tube video is which he suddenly decided that attacking Romney on Bain wasn’t a bad idea, after all.
“Let me be clear,” he said, “Mitt Romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign. . . Therefore it is reasonable — and therefore I encourage it — for the Obama campaign to examine that record and discuss it.”
Say this for Team Obama: It knows how to make its surrogates stick to the talking points — no dissent allowed.
Even if they have to make themselves look foolish in the process.
And make the now-humiliated Booker, one of the party’s substantive young talents, look like a hand puppet, too.
But, as former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford noted, Booker was spot-on.
Private equity is a linchpin in growing the US economy — especially when it’s troubled. It spurs company growth — and with it, job creation.
Yes, some investments fail, and jobs vanish in their wake. That’s the nature of the free market.
That the Obama campaign continues such attacks — even while eagerly courting campaign bucks from those same investors — speaks volumes to the shameless cynicism and hypocrisy of the president’s team.
As for Cory Booker — he should go back to making videos with Chris Christie.