Lawrence O'Donnell rescinded some of his previous criticism of Newt Gingrich during his Rewrite segment and praised him for going after Mitt Romney and his time at Bain Capital and for earning himself new enemies like Rush Limbaugh for this:
O'DONNELL: Republicans are hearing things from Newt Gingrich that they have never heard from a Republican before. They are hearing that in our capitalist system the freedom to choose our occupations, the freedom to choose what we will do for money requires us to check, not just if it's legal, but if it's the right thing to do. That requires judgment. Sometimes ethical judgement. Sometimes moral judgement. It requires a sense of decency. It requires restraint in situations where the situation would allow you to exploit others.
What we do for money and what harm we do while doing it, goes a long way to define who we are. Mitt Romney took over businesses and among other practices, fired people to make money, not to make a modest profit that would keep the business alive, but to make massive profit, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, unspendable amounts of money for him and his family. So much money that Mitt Romney fears even showing us just one year of his income tax returns, which would be but a tiny measure of his actual current wealth.
And Newt Gingrich is asking how many people could have kept their jobs if Mitt Romney was willing to make a couple of hundred million dollars less than what he made at Bain Capital. If Newt Gingrich stops talking about this tomorrow, if Rush Limbaugh scares him into silence on this, Newt Gingrich has already done an admirable job of forcing Republicans to think about something they don't like to think about, the difference between the right to do something and doing the right thing.
The Last Word on this goes to Newt Gingrich.
GINGRICH: I am not saying anything that Mitt Romney's done was outside the law. I'm saying it may have been bad judgment. It may have been an exploitation. It may be inappropriate and I think as a potential president you ought to look... the idea of saying “well I was barely inside the law so it's okay,” no. Was it the right thing to do?
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
