Inside 'The War Room' – What is Mitt hiding now?

A very Good Friday to you all, here are some of the stories we are watching in ‘The War Room’ today, April 6th, 2012:

The “meh” jobs numbers caused a wave of disappointment from those placing high bets on Twitter this morning, but as Steve Benen reminds us, the economy has “added 1.9 million jobs over the last year, and nearly 3.5 million jobs over the last three years.” He’s got a great chart that shows the trajectory of overall growth, too. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.2 percent, the lowest since Obama took office in 2009. Still, Ezra Klein sounds the warning: Every single jobs report on the first Friday of the month from here on out will be scrutinized down to the very last detail, and both campaigns will either a) trumpet the results as a victory, or b) spin the results to fit their narrative. Get used to this, it will become the newest poll numbers for a day, and then we move on. One oddity to report: Retail sales were up 4.1% last month, and yet retailers cut 34,000 jobs. And one bright spot: Manufacturing added 37,000 jobs.

Just what is Mitt Romney hiding? The Washington Post reports that Romney has used loopholes in the disclosure law to shield the nature and extent of his holdings in 48 accounts (!) associated with Bain Capital, “including his holdings in a company that moved U.S. jobs to China and a California firm once owned by Bain that filed for bankruptcy years ago and laid off more than 1,000 workers.” While Romney’s (lack of) disclosure is within the bounds of current law, The Washington Post reports several experts find that “Romney’s disclosure is the most opaque they have encountered.” The Obama campaign has a good point when they say that Romney released his returns to the McCain campaign in 2008 to be vetted for the VP slot.

While President Obama is hosting a forum on women and the economy today, GOP head Reince Priebus is still trying to bury the fact that Republicans have been waging a war on women out in the states. “If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars,” he told Bloomberg. Well, funny you should bring that up Reince, because it turns out that, yes, the GOP has declared war on caterpillars, too. Add them to the ever-growing list. And by the way, Mitt Romney is getting ready to tell us his “real position” on women. Question is: If he was lying to the conservatives about that to get their votes, why would you ever believe him now?

If you’re a political junkie, you are probably getting massive amounts of fundraising e-mail as campaigns and interest groups pass your name around like you are one of those 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Jon Stewart might have a point about the familiarity that some politicians will take with you:

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