I could have added this Matt Lewis find to my earlier post, but this deserves its own thread for a couple of reasons. One, it’s much more on point than comparisons to Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Valerie Jarrett. Two, it’s yet another reminder of the bad decision made by House Democrats after their 2010 midterm debacle:

On the heels of The Weekly Standard’s report yesterday that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz — a vocal critic of Mitt Romney‘s investing practices, had herself dabbled in the foreign markets — we can add Nancy Pelosi to the list of prominent Democrats to profit from overseas investments. According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ”Matthews International Capital Management LLC,” a group that emphasizes that it has a “A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.” A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing. … Pelosi is also a small investor in the embattled “Moduslink Global,” one of the “outsourcing pioneers” that Mitt Romney has been criticized for associating with while at Bain Capital.

And thus does the “outsourcing” meme implode. This doesn’t involve an indirect investment by a retirement account, nor an ambiguous line of credit. Pelosi’s investment in offshoring is direct, substantial, purposeful — and profitable. It also shows that the leader of Congressional Democrats followed Romney’s own investment pattern, which makes it very, very difficult for Obama to demonize Romney’s investments.

As Matt notes, there is nothing wrong with investing overseas. People should put their money where they find a good return and an ethical application of business principles. For the House Minority Leader, that ethical application includes supporting jobs overseas — and that’s a defendable, rational choice for private business transactions, just as it was and is for Mitt Romney. Now, when it comes to public funds derived from a program that was sold as a means of “saving and creating” jobs here in America, well, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Like I said earlier, that’s a debate that the GOP will welcome.