Mark Halperin of TIME devotes his latest “Between the Lines” column to the Obama re-election team’s attack on Mitt Romney’s record as head of the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Though Halperin pans Romney’s response to the attack, the column nonetheless notes that the Obama team’s charges are largely baseless.

Democrats have fused the flaps over Romney’s missing tax returns and his years at the helm of Bain Capital to keep the Republican’s Boston campaign on the defensive. The question of Romney’s role at the venture-capital shop is largely bogus. Romney left Bain abruptly in 1999 to take over the troubled Salt Lake City Olympic operation, maintaining his titular role as CEO and president on regulator filings until his negotiated final separation from the firm in 2002. Democrats have successfully kept the issue alive in part by suggesting, without any evidence, that Romney secretly continued to manage the company.