Mitt Romney’s defiant secrecy about his personal finances looks like a cross Republicans will have to bear all the way to Election Day. To put it mildly, the burden seems to chafe.
Apoplexy is not the tone politicians generally seek to project. Yet there was GOP chief Reince Priebus on ABC’s “This Week,” calling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a “dirty liar” for his claim about how little Romney may have paid in taxes. There was Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying of Reid, “I think he’s lying.” There was Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” decrying a “reckless and slanderous charge by Harry Reid.” It was a coordinated Sunday morning display of righteous indignation. But in making such a show of denouncing Dirty Harry’s foul calumny, all Republicans succeeded in doing was draw attention to Romney’s refusal to release more than a year’s worth of tax returns — and guarantee more coverage of Reid’s claims.
Reid was a boxer in his youth, and what he did to Romney was the equivalent of a head butt. He claimed to have a “source” who told him Romney paid no federal income taxes for 10 years. Who is this alleged source? Reid won’t say. It’s reasonable to question whether the source even exists, much less whether he or she would be in a position to know what’s in those tax forms Romney is so reluctant to reveal. It’s understandable that the GOP candidate and his surrogates would accuse Reid of an unfair attack.
But they can’t prove it’s an untrue attack unless Romney does what conservative commentators and Republican insiders have been urging: Release the tax returns, as Americans have expected of every presidential candidate since, well, since Romney’s father set the standard in 1968. “His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said, referring to George Romney’s decision to release a dozen years’ worth of tax returns for public inspection. That was the equivalent of rubbing salt into the wound opened by the head butt.