But, as the Post pointed out, this didn’t take into account the jobs lost due to layoffs at firms Bain invested in, particularly during its later-stage leveraged buyout period, and so the statement got a single Pinocchio.

When challenged at Saturday’s debate by moderator George Stephanopoulos that the 100,000-job claim didn’t include the jobs taken away by layoffs, Romney replied, “No, it’s not accurate. It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that” — a comment that Fortune rated as “false” and the Post gave three Pinocchios.

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But even the fact-checkers’ definitive-sounding conclusions are couched in doubt. As Fortune put it: “No one knows for sure, including Romney.”

How can such a tangible, measurable thing be so unknowable?

Part of the problem, from the perspective of the private equity industry, is that at the end of the day there is only one legitimate way to gauge success, and that is by how much money goes into investors’ pockets.

“The measure of private equity being jobs is silly,” said Steven Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business who researches private equity. “The right measure is what you are doing for your investors, and that’s where he looks extremely good.”

Bain declined to comment for this article, but Kaplan was certain that they “have no idea” what the employment figures related to their various investments is.

For most business stories — and certainly those dealing with public companies — reporters would have other ways of obtaining information besides being spoon fed by the company itself. But Bain has blocked many of the avenues that would enable reporters to get information on their own, declining to give The Wall Street Journal a list of the companies it has invested in (“citing privacy reasons”) or even any information about when its involvement with its investments ended.

It’s not clear how much of a choice Bain has about what it can disclose. Private equity companies often tend to have confidentiality agreements with their investors (Bain would not comment on what agreements it has). Several equity experts interviewed for this story thought any disclosures from Bain were likely to spook its investors.

The private equity business model is based on taking companies out of the public markets, where reporting requirements are strict and investors punishing, making changes that will hopefully make them more profitable and then selling them or taking them public through an IPO.

The part that happens behind the curtain is not always pretty, and private equity firms have learned over the years that it’s hard to tell a complicated story in the media. The goal of private equity is to keep things private.

“It’s had very little consciousness in the political realm until Romney came along because these guys are smart enough not to try to become Treasury secretaries,” said Bill Cohan, a former Wall Street banker-turned-investigative journalist who wrote “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came To Rule The World.”

When Romney tried before — in his 1994 Senate race — to use the supposed job-creating power of private equity for political gain, the result was a PR disaster for the industry. His Democratic opponent, Sen. Ted Kennedy, fired back with damaging ads highlighting the strike at an Indiana factory of Bain-owned Ampad, which laid off workers and hired them back at lower wages with fewer benefits.

The pro-Gingrich super PAC attack videos — and whatever Democrats cook up for the general election if Romney wins the nomination — just pick up where Kennedy left off, highlighting the personal stories of laid-off workers.