In campaign advertisements and in speeches recently, President Barack Obama has criticized Republican Mitt Romney’s experience at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded and ran during his business career. Obama’s campaign message is that Bain Capital, like most private equity firms, causes disruption and pain for employees in the process of trying to make a profit for investors or turn around a failing company.

Obama’s anti-Romney television advertisements feature former employees of companies where Bain invested and imposed layoffs or plant closures as part of the turnaround process. Some of Bain’s turnaround effort did fail. Some of Bain’s turnaround efforts succeeded, returning companies to profitability and making profits for the investors.

In one case featured in an ad for Obama’s re-election campaign, a steel company in Kansas City that was facing bankruptcy was bought by Bain in 1993. Following the acquisition, Bain invested about $100 million in modernizing the plant’s equipment in a turnaround effort that eventually failed eight years later. When the company did file for bankruptcy in 2001, the head of the local steelworkers union blamed cheap imported steel for the company’s failure, not the involvement of Bain Capital.

The workers who lost their jobs when the steel company failed would have lost their jobs if Bain had not tried to rescue the company — they just would have lost them eight years earlier.

So, was Bain’s turnaround effort bad, as Obama’s ads imply?

Even in cases where Bain succeeded, there were often major disruptions. Some people lost jobs; sometimes divisions were downsized or closed. Bain generally caused disruptions or signicant changes in companies it invested in, but the changes were thought to be necessary to increase efficiency and boost profitability.

Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark, N.J., created a stir among Democrats recently when he took issue with Obama attacking Romney and Bain Capital.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell, who has been an adviser to two investment firms, agreed with Booker, calling Obama’s Bain ads “very disappointing.”

Some Obama supporters discounted Booker’s criticisms by noting that he accepted campaign contributions from Wall Street and private equity firms.

But Obama’s Bain criticism is ironic, given his campaign boasts about saving General Motors during the height of the financial crisis.

The intervention of the Obama administration into the auto industry and the changes at GM were not unlike changes that a private equity firm might impose in a turnaround effort.

When the federal government bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, there were many disruptive changes and a shake-up of the status quo — all thought necessary for survival.

The Obama adminstration forced out GM’s CEO, believing that new leadership was necessary for dramatic change. The company was pressed to drop some product lines, and it closed factories and laid off tens of thousands of workers. The company also shed some legacy costs by shifting health care costs to a new entity.

The turnaround at GM, which Obama takes credit for, especially when he campaigns in the Midwest, was disruptive and cost many people their jobs. New labor agreements between the company and the United Auto Workers allow newly hired workers to be paid much less than longtime UAW workers — again, necessary to help GM achieve competitive labor costs.

The turnaround of GM was difficult and disruptive — not unlike an investment managed by a private equity firm.

In the end, the changes imposed at GM appear to have helped the company restructure and survive. Obama boasts of his administration’s efforts, which supported GM shedding jobs and shutting down factories — much like a private equity turnaround.

Obama is either disengenuous or purely political in criticizing Bain Capital while boasting of his own administration’s efforts to help save General Motors.

He can’t have it both ways.