(Newser)
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Brace yourself for another round of political I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I: Mitt Romney has repeatedly hammered President Obama for the White House's role in Solyndra's meltdown, but now Konarka Technologies, another solar energy company in which Romney invested public funds as Massachusetts governor, has gone bankrupt, reports the Boston Herald. Romney sent $1.5 million to Konarka shortly after he became governor, along with $2.5 million to Evergreen Solar, which also filed for bankruptcy last year, and provided a $2.5 million loan to the biotech firm Spherics Inc., which closed three years later. The Romney campaign had no comment.
"That's what governors do—they have to pick winners and losers," a Boston University professor told Reuters. "It's a calculated risk that governors and state politicians take in an effort to get jobs." Strangely, Evergreen Solar also appeared in a recent anti-Obama ad produced by Karl Rove-funded American Crossroads, criticizing the president for putting public money into private business. “If Romney gets a little bit of heat because he participated in some of these policies at a point in time, it’s all fair in the world of politics,” says a Massachusetts state senator. “He’s criticizing on one hand, he’s got to take criticism on the other.”
