Bobby Jindal defends Romney on offshore investments

Washington, July 9 (IANS) Louisiana's Indian-American Governor Bobby Jindal, whose name often figures among Mitt Romney's likely running mates, has defended the presumptive Republican presidential nominee against attacks over his offshore investments.

"Look, I'm happy he's a successful businessman. We've got a president today who's never run a business, never run anything including a lemonade stand before he was president of the United States," Jindal said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

His comments follow a week of Democratic criticism of Romney for placing his money overseas in so-called tax havens, such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

Asked whether or not Romney's finances should be an influential factor in this election, Jindal described the attacks as "distractions" but said voters will likely remember them as they head to the polls.

"I think voters will consider all of the distractions thrown out by the Obama campaign," Jindal said.

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign immediately seized on Jindal's comments, pointing out that Jindal declined to directly address questions about Romney's overseas investments and saying the governor "can't explain away" the candidate's accounts.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs called on Romney to release more than the two years' worth of tax returns he has so far made public as a way to answer questions about his investments.

"This is a guy whose slogan is 'Believe in America,' and it should be 'business in Bermuda,'" Gibbs said.

The Obama campaign also released a new two-and-a-half minute web video on Sunday, asking the same questions of Romney's investments, namely those listed in a Vanity Fair article published earlier this week that first kicked off the wave of attacks, according to CNN.

Romney's campaign has continually insisted that Romney, whose wealth could be worth as much as $250 million, has never been guilty of tax evasion nor broken any laws in his carefully managed finances.

Responding to latest Democratic attacks, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul said: "The Obama campaign's latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting."

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)