The dispute over when exactly Mitt Romney left Bain Capital took another confusing turn this weekend, when campaign adviser Ed Gillespie seemed to introduce an element of time travel into the controversy. Romney's camp insists he departed the private equity firm in 1999, when he left to salvage the Salt Lake City Olympics. But the Boston Globe reported last week that Bain's SEC filings and Romney's personal disclosure forms showed he was technically in charge through 2002.

All of this is important politically because Romney says he can't be held responsible for Bain's actions post-1999, such as the shuttering of a steel plant in Kansas that left 700 workers unemployed. On Sunday, Gillespie tried to deal with the apparent contradiction by telling CNN Romney had "retired retroactively."

"He took a leave of absence and in fact he ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to 1999 as a result," he said.

What in the name of Quantum Leap is going on here? To make a little sense of Gillespie's line, and figure out whether it tells us anything about Romney's actual role at Bain while he was off in Utah, I called up a pair of lawyers who regularly deal with high-level executive employment issues: Hogan Lovells Partner Martha Steinman and Morrison Cohen Partner Robert Sedgwick.