Last week, Harry Reid claimed on the Senate floor that Mitt
Romney hadn't paid any taxes for ten years. The head of the RNC called
Reid a "dirty liar." What's Reid trying to do here?It’s entirely
possible that Reid’s incendiary charge has nothing to back it up but
(at best) an unsubstantiated rumor. That’s why the GOP is likening him to Joe McCarthy.But there are two important distinctions between Reid and McCarthy. (1) Reid isn’t accusing Romney of being a traitor or even of breaking the law; he’s accusing him of paying no taxes, which can be perfectly legal for the super-rich if loopholes and ingenious accounting schemes align in their favor. (2) While McCarthy’s victims couldn’t empirically and instantly prove that they were not subversives,
Romney can easily call Reid’s bluff and prove that he did pay taxes by releasing his tax returns. So if Romney releases his returns, which many Republicans feel he should do anyway as a matter of transparency and good politics, and it turns out Reid is indeed a dirty liar, end of story. Republicans in the Senate can then turn the heat on the Democrats, moving to censure Reid much as McCarthy’s Senate peers ultimately censured him.
How likely is it that Reid's gambit is going to pay off for the Democrats?It already is. According to the latest Times swing-state poll, about half the voters already
believe that Romney must release more tax returns. The longer Romney
refuses, and the more he and his surrogates whine about Reid, the longer
the issue stays center stage and the more that poll number is likely to
go up.
And Republicans know it too — Reid seems to be driving them insane. On ABC’s This Week last Sunday, Ann Coulter was so desperate to rationalize Romney’s failure to release his tax returns that she compared him favorably to Bill Clinton, whose refusal (in 1992) to release his medical records, she said, might have been an attempt to cover up drug addiction. With Romney defenders like Coulter, the Democrats can just sit back and enjoy the show.
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And Republicans know it too — Reid seems to be driving them insane. On ABC’s This Week last Sunday, Ann Coulter was so desperate to rationalize Romney’s failure to release his tax returns that she compared him favorably to Bill Clinton, whose refusal (in 1992) to release his medical records, she said, might have been an attempt to cover up drug addiction. With Romney defenders like Coulter, the Democrats can just sit back and enjoy the show.
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