To the Editor:

This is in response to the Dec. 22 Op-ED Piece, (I call it a piece because articles have to have a sense of truth; an op-ed piece uses a lot of spin.) “Coming Soon: Mitt the Heartless, Part Two!” Now here is the rest of the story. How often do you make assumptions? If you see a man and a woman shopping together at the grocery store and, every time she turns to him, she yells in a loud voice, is she angry? You assume she’s mad. Right? As they pass by, the hearing aid in his ear is plain to see. The wife is doing her best to communicate.

Well, consider all those political ads we see during campaigns for our vote. Do you assume “Mitt is Heartless” when the message is spun to assure that you will think so? Before becoming governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney was in the business of correcting mistakes made by the original Utah Winter Olympic Committee. He stopped the illegal payoffs and turned the committee around to a functioning unit with proper integrity.

Now back to Cokie and Steve and the issues they addressed. When Mitt Romney was working for Bain & Company, the mission of his organization was either turning around poorly managed companies or managing the closing down of the companies. So many of the companies you will hear about in the negative political commercials had grown too fast and with no one watching the cost. This management created an environment of too many employees who were paid more than the company could afford. Good management meant reorganizing and downsizing the staff. Not something very pleasant, but, to save the company and the remaining employees’ jobs, it had to be done. And because, now Mitt Romney is running for president of the U.S., the spun commentary makes you think he’s a real stinker for the actions of his company in reorganizing a poorly run organization. So, when you watch this negative political message or read this op-ed piece, if you assume that Mitt Romney’s organizational skills kill jobs and he would not be a compassionate leader … If you do, the message worked!

PAUL OUGHTON
Washington