Picture this.  Barack Obama delivers a big speech in Austin, Texas, one of the few hospitable venues for Democrats in the deeply red state, slamming Mitt Romney for “outsourcing” as a private-sector executive, when he really means off-shoring:

In a speech to about 1,300 people at the Austin Music Hall, Obama recited the accomplishments of his first term: ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which required gays in the military to keep their sexuality a secret; killing terrorist Osama bin Laden; changing immigration policy to allow children of undocumented immigrants who were born elsewhere to stay in the U.S. legally; and passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

He also compared himself with challenger Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. Obama talked about Romney’s support of “top-down economics,” saying that Romney’s “theory” of tax breaks for the wealthy hasn’t worked.

“I believe in bottom-up economics,” Obama said, adding that he would like to make sure anyone earning $250,000 a year or less wouldn’t see their taxes rise “one dime.” Obama said Romney, onetime CEO of a private equity firm, made a lot of money by outsourcing talent to other countries.

The President then heads over to a big $25,000-a-plate fundraiser hosted by a captain of the computer industry, former Dell executive Tom Meredith.  Maybe Obama thought rubbing shoulders with a real Texas businessman would burnish his bottom-up credentials, but if so, BuzzFeed has a buzz-kill piece of information for Team Obama:

After giving a speech in Austin, Texas in which he decried Mitt Romney for overseeing companies that outsourced jobs, President Obama attended a fundraiser hosted by Tom Meredith, a former Dell executive who once oversaw outsourcing at his own company — and said he would be “ruthless” about cutting costs.

In 2001, while serving as senior vice president of Dell Computer Corp, Meredith defended plans to lay off between 3,000 and 4,000 employees — largely in Texas — while sparing about 4,000 jobs in Asia Pacific. When that strategy was reported by the tech press at the time Meredith defended the move.

“We will be ruthless in how we address our cost structure,” Meredith said, a comment that drew wide attention at the time.

Meredith has off-shored 4,000 more jobs than Mitt Romney ever did in the private sector. Apparently, Obama has no problem with off-shorers when they stick money in his pockets.

Seriously, does the Obama campaign bother to vet their fundraisers at all?