K-Drum has his head shoved up his ass again, I see.
Here is Harry Reid on Mitt Romney’s taxes: “I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years.” PolitiFact rates this a Pants on Fire lie.
An awful lot of liberals disagree. Typical reasons include sophistry (“PolitiFact doesn’t know that Romney paid any taxes”); revenge (“Romney’s been telling lots of lies, so why shouldn’t we?”); disingenuousness (“All Romney has to do is release his tax returns to clear this up”); or lying as a virtue (“Politics ain’t beanbag”).
You want to know what sophistry, disingenousness and lying as a virtue really are, Kevin? Four years of outright vitriolic nonsense involving Democrats being called terrorist sympathizers who are willing to kill Americans, fascists waiting to round us up and take our guns and our liberty, anti-American agents of foreign governments undermining the country, and nihilists waiting to foment a national race war, in particular directed at one Barack Obama. It’s having his wife, the First Lady of the United States, referred to as “Moochelle”. It’s having Republicans completely lie in order to take rights away from anyone who disagrees with them politically, the relentless effort to disenfranchise and crush the political and socioeconomic power of those groups they cannot control into voting for them, those who resist an entire television and radio empire dedicated to the sole propagation of insidious garbage.
Take a deep breath, folks. This is contemptible stuff and it’s not just business as usual. We’ve spent too many years berating the tea partiers for getting on bandwagons like this to get sucked into it ourselves the first time it’s convenient. It’s time to quit cheering on Reid and get off this particular bus.
Instead you climb up on your high horse and lecture us about how we shouldn’t stoop to the level of the Republican Party by actually equating Democrats supporting the one time I can honestly remember in the last year that the Democrats actually stood up against the mile-high shitstorm of constant lies spewed by the GOP and actually drew a line to the Tea Party, and your first instinct is to fold the card table and let them keep getting away with it, including letting Romney get away with not releasing his tax returns. Why should any Democrat in America take a stand against these jagoffs when our side says “No, what we’re doing makes us just as bad as they are!” and we concede? That’s “contemptible stuff”? Have you been paying attention?
Republicans certainly believe the ends justify the means, and until we knock off this moronic cowering, they’ll keep on winning. Jesus seal the saucer section and drop the warp nacelles, man. Get a goddamn spine. These guys are trying to eradicate our political, economic, and social power here if you haven’t noticed. Me? I’m okay with Harry Reid saying “I think Mitt Romney is full of shit” because you know what? He is.
Not much has changed in the last two weeks, man. We’re still waiting for Romney to even begin to tell the truth. How dare we call him on that, right? We’re still in a situation where one side has to play by the rules and the other side is too busy smearing the rulebooks with their own feces and setting them on fire. Stop with the false equivalence, will ya?
shoutingattherain
Kevin Drum. Still a pussy.
Joey Maloney
applause
spudvol
Dems didn’t draw a line, they just shit in the punchbowl too.
Elroy's Lunch
More please.
Phil Perspective
Did Mother Jones sell out to Slate, or something? Or is K-Drum pissed that Yglesias and Ezra are winning the battle to be the new Broder?
BerkeleyMom
Well said. I cannot even imagine the shit storm if Obama had not released his tax returns. What Mitt is trying to get away with is unprecedented and Reid is backing him into a corner. It’s not like Harry’s accusing Mitt of being a secret Kenyan Muslim terrorist or anything.
El Cid
It’s not contemptible stuff.
Again, the reason Republicans scream such much about “Chicago style politics” is that they assume that Democrats will never, ever actually engage in “Chicago style politics”.
They don’t know what to do when Democrats play hardball too.
They think it against the laws of the Universe — guffaw, buh, buh, you’re supposed to just take it!
And the supposedly mature crew (hey, John Kerry was so dignified in not responding to those perfectly newsworthy charges that he basically faked his military service and didn’t earn those purple hearts like brave, National-Guard-attending G. W. Bush Jr, American hero) tut-tuts about how Reid should not say such things.
Yet, how is Reid’s statement worse or empirically weaker than Romney’s hearsay statement that he paid lots, plenty of taxes?
(1) A guy told me Mitt Romney paid no income taxes.
(2) A guy told me Mitt Romney paid plenty of income taxes.
Neither statement is empirically stronger or politically more dignified.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
How is accusing someone of legally paying no taxes an awful slander that destroys the Republic? Honestly, why doesn’t the likes of Drum retire to a monastery if they can’t stand it.
Bobby Thomson
Water is wet, too.
Arm The Homeless
Kevin has “reasonable conservatives” to think about here. I mean, how could he show his face at happy-hour if he didn’t take a strong stand against such chicanery?
You know Kevin is getting political-wood over this, he just has to pretend to be concerned. Luckily Mr. Drum isn’t on my ballot.
taylormattd
Drum, Anderson Cooper, and Jon Stewart can all piss up a rope on this issue.
Legalize
The fuck ever. The fact that they are pretending to not understand simple arguments and words, proves that they are shitting themselves trying to figure out how to carry Wimpy Willard’s water for the next 90s days. Also, too, it’s working and the polls reflect this. Wimpy Willard’s favorables are cratering in the important states.
Just turn it up to 11.
Richard
For about as long as I’ve been exposed to his writing, I’ve thought that Drum has been playing the role of a “centrist” concern troll as a career move.
He went from the Washington Monthly to Mother Jones. The next logical stop would be the Washington Post as a replacement for Richard Cohen whenever Cohen retires.
Jose Padilla
It would be a start if Romney were to unequivically say he did pay US income taxes in the last 10 years. Until he makes that statement there isn’t even a controversy. And he’s already had almost a week.
booferama
Sigh. “Even the liberal Kevin Drum. . .”
john
right on!
taylormattd
@spudvol: Fucking stupid. “Dems” did no such thing. Politics is the way it is because of 50 years of republican ratfucking. It is so bad, that most democrats are completely understandably terrified of making any noise. They tend to be savaged by the media and then lose elections, so why should they do otherwise?
But here we have a person, the Senate Majority leader, who has decided he doesn’t care whether he wins another election, pulling out the stops, playing by the rules designed and enforced by the media and republicans, and you want to bemoan the lack of civility or something insipid like that?
Harry Reid has single handedly managed to keep Mitt Romney’s tax returns in the media for a week and a half now. Climb down from the fucking cross and applaud the guy already.
Libby Spencer
Delurking briefly to give Zandar a standing ovation. I don’t hate Drum. But christ in a cupcake shop, sometimes he can be such an ass.
Joey Maloney
At the end of the day I wouldn’t be completely shocked if it turns out there’s nothing that awful in those tax returns; it’s just that Mittens is outraged, outraged I say, sir, that the Help has the gall to demand anything of him.
Litlebritdifrnt
There is no doubt in my mind that Mitt is the kind of rich prick who would BRAG about not paying taxes. I believe Reid when he says that it was a Bain investor that told him, because I bet you dollars to donuts that Romney was bragging to the guy that he could make him a fortune and he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it cause “hey I’ve made millions and haven’t paid taxes for ten years”.
Steve
The whole thing comes across as a feel-good exercise. I know that whatever I say will have no impact on Harry Reid, so I can denounce his tactics and feel good about myself as a moral individual. But it’s just a consequence-free stance, nothing more.
The real question to ask yourself is whether you’d rather win the election by using this tactic or lose the election while refusing to use it. (Of course, in the real world the election is very unlikely to turn on the use of this specific tactic, but it’s a meaningless question unless you assume there are consequences.)
If you choose the latter option, maybe that means you’re a deeply moral individual, but more likely it means that you just don’t understand the stakes of this election. How many people should lose their health insurance so you can feel like a super-scrupulous person?
Of course, there are many elections where the stakes are high. You could say that my logic implies that the ends justify the means, and of course that’s what my logic implies. That’s why politics gets dirty and will remain dirty.
gypsy howell
I like Kevin’s writing a lot of the time, but he’s just SO out to lunch on this. I just don’t get where he’s coming from at all. Especially when its so obvious that all anyone, including Reid, is pressuring Romney to do is what all other recent presidents have done. He could clear this up in 5 minutes all by himself… or can he?
And I haven’t been watching TDS lately, but I gather that Jon Stewart is concern-trolling too?
gn
Good piece. Drum has fallen into a false equivalence and failed to detect the…shall I say it…sophistry, of politifact’s analysis. They have no evidence which suggests that Reid is lying about having that particular source who is claiming that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years. Reid himself said that he has no idea whether his source’s claims are true or not, but we can’t know conclusively until Romney releases his returns. That is a 100% truthful statement, even if the tactic is vicious. I’m personally very dismissive of the handwringing surrounding the Bain discussions and the tax return discussions. These are both topics which Romney put on the table–Bain, by running on that experience, and the returns, by bizarrely deviating from modern precedent and shrouding his personal finances in secrecy.
In any event, all of this brouhaha can be ended quite simply: Romney can do as every other presidential candidate has done since his own dad set the precedent, and afford the public the same respect which he afforded John McCain by showing us the returns.
japa21
Drum is full of it on this issue. The interesting thing to me is that the shit storm over this part of Reid’s statement is so intense that the part where he talked about how 17 angry old white men could end up gloating over buying the election has been totally ignored.
To me, that is actually the more important thing that has to get out there.
pseudonymous in nc
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Or was passing on details of his accountants and tax lawyers, because that’s what 0.1%ers do.
Waynski
Well said. Apparently, when both sides actually do it the beltway media’s collective head explodes. The Villagers have been ignoring this shit from the right for literally twenty years all the while pretending both sides were responsible. Well now you really will get it from both sides and the Dems should start treating the press in the same bullying “lick my boots you peon” fashion the Republicans do. Enjoy the ride fuckos.
schrodinger's cat
This Village seems to be full of idiots.
gn
@Steve: Not disagreeing with your comment, but at least for me, this is not just a political tactic. I honestly want to know what Mittens is hiding. He’s asking the public to entrust him with a great deal of power yet has destroyed records in MA and is closing the public off from any sort of meaningful examination of his personal finances. Romney is truly and utterly wrong here.
Face
I agree you cant unshit this bed. The smear-by-rumor is game on, started, refined, and perfected by the GOP. Drum is just dumbfounded that in order to win the votes, you have to get your hands dirty. Maybe Kevin needs a new profession.
ACS
The whole premise of this concern trolling makes no sense. It’s one thing to have an argument about whether we should adopt hardball tactics that Republicans use, but this whole situation doesn’t even raise that issue.
An anonymous source tells Reid that Romney paid no taxes. Reid doesn’t know if this is true or not, and says so. How is this some affront to civilized discourse? November can’t come soon enough.
BGinCHI
Can some fucking “journalist” please ask the question:
Why is saying that Romney payed no income taxes a slander?
Isn’t the whole Norquist wing of the GOP (which is the whole bird, really) committed to exactly that?
You’d think someone would state the obvious: if not paying taxes is bad, then shouldn’t we be talking about how the GOP can run it’s entire political philosophy on it?
Rick Taylor
Perhaps its fine having centrists wring their hands over Reid’s remarks; it just publicizes them further.
*Ahem* As for me, I am quite disgusted with Harry Reid for saying that ROMNEY PAID NO FEDERAL TAXES FOR 10 YEARS. We have absolutely no reason to believe that ROMNEY PAID NO FEDERAL TAXES FOR 10 YEARS. True, ROMNEY COULD CLEAR THIS UP ANY TIME BY RELEASING HIS TAX RETURNS WHICH HE REFUSES TO DO, but there’s no reason he should have to. Mitt Romney might have some perfectly good reason for NOT RELEASING HIS INCOME TAXES and we can’t prove ROMNEY PAID NO FEDERAL TAXES FOR 10 YEARS
Redshift
@Litlebritdifrnt: Exactly. I used that exact argument against a little wingnut troll at Maddowblog who insisted that the story had to be false because a Bain investor wouldn’t have seen Romney’s tax returns. No one is saying they saw his tax returns, just that he didn’t pay income taxes. And is there anyone, even among the wingnuts, who believes that Romney, who is such a big douchebag that his campaign actually argued that paying the minimum possible taxes is patriotic, wouldn’t brag about it to one of “his sort” if he managed to get his taxes down to zero?
Rathskeller
I’m on Team Reid. I’m a fan of Drum & Stewart et alia, so their concern trolling is disconcerting.
The only way I can be opposed to this kind of hard-ball politics is if Reid is actually lying. And he’s not. It’s very reasonable that Reid was told this, and further it’s very reasonable that Romney told other people how he was paying zero federal taxes. After all, Romney had paid for his own lobbyist concerning taxes; of course he was likely to advocate techniques to his fellow millionaires.
And of course, the general quality and existence of Reid’s source has been vouched for by CNN, and Romney has not denied the charge as stated by Reid. For me, Reid and his source have told the truth, and it’s good politics.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Joey Maloney:
This alone disqualifies him from public service.
And (just to point this out again) it also disqualifies him from even the most trivial of security clearances: Is he going to tell the FBI and DISCO that they can’t see his financial info for the past ten years?
You ain’t Mr President just yet, Mitty.
Jay in Oregon
Drum can go fuck himself.
How many electrons, gallons of ink, and acres of trees have been lost pleading with the Democrats to show some spine? And yet every time a Democrat steps out on a limb and throws a few punches, the professional left and concern trolls busily start sawing through it behind them.
Right-wing assholes have demonized this president for things as innocuous as suggesting that kids eat broccoli and volunteering in their community. Harry Reid saying that someone close to Mitt Romney, who apparently is in a place to know, told him that Romney has paid no taxes for years is pretty fucking weak tea compared to that.
gypsy howell
And here I thought the press loved “he said-she said” stories. Isn’t this a classic example of the genre? Harry Reid says someone said Romney didn’t pay any taxes. Romney says he did. We report – you decide!
Redshift
@gn: Exactly. I wouldn’t be thrilled if Democrats routinely engaged in the type of “guilty until proven innocent” smear tactics that Republicans do, but in a case where it’s only an issue because Romney is hiding information that every presidential candidate in my adult lifetime has released, anything is fair game.
bobbo
I stopped reading Drum a while ago. Not only is he a fake liberal, he just ain’t all that bright either
Zifnab
@gypsy howell:
He did the “both sides” two-step last week, berating Reid for making unfounded allegation and then calling out FOX’n’Friends for having the vapors over it.
I can’t really blame Stewart, because he is forever playing the high-minded-moralist card and turning up his nose at anything even remotely politically controversial. Its not like this is a huge deviation of character. It’s just a bit of an eye-roll when we know Stewart is smart enough to see Reid’s political play, but he feels the need to skirt the core of the issue – that Rmoney doesn’t want to release his tax returns because they will only feed Obama’s narrative.
Either way, I honestly don’t care what the stuffed shirts on network news have to say. The fact that we are still taking about how much tax money Romney didn’t pay seems to indicate that this play by Reid has been a stunning success.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@BGinCHI:
Norquist, like Romney, is a scion of hereditary wealth & privilege (in his case, daddy was a high-level VP at Polaroid years ago).
And Norquist, like Romney, doesn’t really want the Little People to know just how much the system is rigged against them. Because then we’ll start actually talking about (1) Is that really the best way to run a country, and (2) How we should maybe tips the scales back towards productive, creative work instead of financial parasitism.
hueyplong
Reid should stay on this each and every day until Romney commits a gaffe so awful that it’s impossible to resist turning to it instead.
And when that gaffe’s reasonable lifespan is completed, return to this (the tax returns).
The identities of the hand wringers and the nature of their arguments send no signal other than “full speed ahead.”
Quicksand
Drum has some great posts that I learn a lot from, full of charts and smart economic analysis.
And then he has posts like these.
Because of the latter I’m THIS CLOSE to Yglesiating him right out of my RSS reader.
ericblair
I don’t know about you, but when we are scraping together a hand-to-mouth existence in a post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by ignorant warmongering, rampant financial mismanagement, and environmental collapse from pollution and climate change; when we are fighting over the least radioactive rat we fished out of the sewer and the least maggotty apple; at least I, sir, can go to my trash pit of a grave knowing that I, at least, did not Cast Aspersions.
gn
@ACS: Couldn’t agree more.
Hit dogs will holler. The screeching and whining show that the tax return conversation is spot on.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Steve:
__
US politics is the continuation of civil war by other means, and one of the big reasons why we’ve lurched so far to the right in the last generation is that the Democratic leadership we’ve been saddled with just love to take turns putting on their George B McClellan costumes and gettting their asses whupped by the GOP. I’m glad Sen. Reid has decided to take a more Sherman-esque approach to the matter, and so far as I’m concerned the tender and dainty flowers who are now retiring to their fainting couches at the first sign of carnage can kindly go shove it where the sun don’t shine. If they had shown more backbone to begin with, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
El Cid
All that said, as long as Reid et al ignore the tut-tutting, I’d rather there be all the tut-tutting. It helps the game along, partly by making Reid — Harry Reid — look like some sort of rule-breaking rebel.
That’s a hard thing to do.
piratedan
false equivalency, Drum haz it…..
really, asking Mitt to do what all other candidates have done prior to him for as far back as anyone can remember is somehow a bridge to far to exonerate himself and expose the “lies” that us heinous Dems are perniciously spreading about him. I would like to think that a healthy dose of STFU would be right up the Republican wheelhouse since they made a sitting President “release” his own Birth Cert to shut them up (not that they even recognize Hawaii as a state apparently) when their collective caterwauling reached such a sensationalist pitch the Washington pundits were busy playing the “if a tree falls in the forest” game. So a bit of quid pro quo is returned across the net and NOW its unacceptable.
Hey Mr. Drum, why don’t you post your tax returns for the last few years? Oh that’s right, you’re not running for higher office on a campaign based on the wealthy paying too much in taxes. THIS douchebag Mittens is and one of the very best ways to prove his point is to shut us all up by showing us his tax returns that indicate just how much of a burden that the United States government has placed on him, the job creator that he is.
Redshift
@Rathskeller:
This is the thing that is so damning about it. It’s not just that Romney won’t release his tax returns, it’s that his denials don’t address the actual accusation. In addition, there’s the interview answer where he said he hadn’t paid less than the 13.9% “that I can recall.” Every answer he gives sounds like a man carefully avoiding perjury charges, and you don’t do that unless you’re trying to hide the truth.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Quicksand:
Ironically enough, Yglesias seems to be in the ‘dispel this nonsense, release the returns, already’ camp.
jrg
I love how we’re hearing this after years of FAPFAPFAP “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide!!!” FAPFAPFAP
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
I thought it was irresponsible not to speculate, but I guess that’s one of those it’s only OK if you’re a republican rules. Seriously, with the number of unsubstantiated and assinine claims republicans IN CONGRESS (not fringe wackos) have made about the President, it seems only fair that the Dems be able to launch the occasional attack without the “fact checkers” and policers of balance in our discourse getting their panties in a bunch. Where are they when some congressperson from the other party says Obama hates America or wants to punish success? Nowhere to be found.
Donut
Dear Kevin,
Fuck you. Politics is fucking ugly business – if you want to win. We don’t win elections by making reasoned arguments. We just don’t do that any more in the 21st century (not that we ever really did). The other side won’t have a reasonable discussion, at all – AND YOU KNOW THIS. You and Jon Stewart can go play in traffic for all I care. Getting the vapors over this maneuver, the finest political attack I have ever seen, is silly, counterproductive, and misses about 10 important problems, all of which others have already pointed out above.
xoxo,
Donut
D0n Camillo
@Joey Maloney: I know. It’s the first time in his life that a potential employer has insisted on checking his references.
quannlace
More dumbness today. Romney responded to Obama’s Romney-Hood comment, by calling his comments ‘Obamalogna.’ Wow, that just rolls right of the tongue, don’t it.
TG Chicago
Drum says:
What a horrible choice for an example of “both sides do it”!
People claimed Obama wasn’t born in the US. They said that he could prove them wrong by showing his birth certificate. So Obama… showed them his birth certificate! He made public the evidence which proved them wrong.
Then when Trump and assorted other dead-enders still tried to make an issue out of it, he showed another version of the certificate.
This is exactly the point! Make Mitt show us the proof. If Rmoney releases his returns and it turns out Reid’s source was wrong, I’ll be among the first to call on Reid to apologize. But until then, we should all (especially the media) take the “missing evidence instruction”.
Brian R.
More please.
And fuck Kevin Drum. Maybe he has the luxury of tut-tutting that Harry Reid showed poor form, old chap, but the rest of us don’t give a fucking shit.
The Republicans are playing for keeps and on the verge of shredding the social safety net. Upper-class bloggers firmly ensconced in the world of totebaggers might be able to focus on what’s mannerly, but the rest of us are fighting for our fucking lives.
Fuck you, Drum. Fuck. You.
gypsy howell
@Zifnab:
I lost some respect for Jon Stewart after that inane “why can’t we all just get along” rally he put together a couple years ago. I was very disappointed to discover that at the end of the day, he just doesn’t like the idea that people vehemently disagree about things. During the Bush years, I always thought his point of view was “please don’t treat me like a moron and lie to my face” but it turns out his schtick is really just “I hate politics, even if one side is lying and the other side isn’t.”
gn
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Absolutely disqualifying, because it would signal an imperial attitude which tolerates no dissent or questioning from the “you people.” The press can’t save Romney on this one, and neither can the Miss Manners Dem contingent with all the smelling salts and whatnot. Romney is either hiding something embarrassing in those returns, or his stubborn refusal to decloak his finances is another display of political ineptitude/incompetence. Glad it was called out, and I hope to see more of this.
giltay
Reid’s statement is bullshit. “I know a guy who says …” is always bullshit. Not necessarily a lie (and I’m inclined to think he’s telling the truth) but it adds nothing to the discussion.
BUT
El Cid is right, Romney’s been trying to feed you the exact same bullshit. What Reid is saying may not be adding anything, but he’s keeping the discussion alive and putting political pressure on Romney. People just seem to be confused since, in the absence of real information, Republicans usually had their way with the message and now they don’t.
Reid is simply reminding everyone that Romney is trying to sell you a pig in a poke. Despite his methods, I have a hard time seeing what is wrong with that.
jl
Don’t give an inch. Defend Harry Reid’s right to say stuff, jut like Romney says stuff.
Romney is breaking with custom by not releasing a significant history of his tax returns. He is super rich, and advocating policies that benefit the super rich, and has massive ties with sketchy end of financial industry. This Romney feller wants to be President with a good up front case of massive conflicts of interest, and he won’t release any tax returns he is not able to fix up to look good.
And Romney says ‘trust me’ on the taxes.
And Reid says, a guy in the know called him up and said he has very good reason to believe that Romney paid no taxes for a long string of years. Didn’t say he did anything illegal, or unethcial, just that Romney being real rich found ways to pay no income taxes.
And Reid says ‘trust me’ on the taxes.
And we are supposed to say Reid is some horrible thing? And we are supposed to lay off Romney because we have no proof? This is not a criminal trial. This is an election and this is public policy. Romney, despite the views of many, has no inherent right to be president, or having the people trust him on anything they do not feel like trusting him on when it comes to whether he should run the country.
Go Harry. Don’t swallow the BS.
Is there a public place I can register my one thousand percent support of Harry Reid’s right to tell people what a guy done told him?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
This.
Speak it.
quannlace
Reid says that it’s very creditable source. In these kind of situations, what’s the likely hood of this person coming forward. I’m not saying that the burden of proof is on him and/or Reid, but how often has that happened?
jwb
@Rick Taylor: They can piss on Reid all they want so long as they are careful to mention Reid’s charge that ROMNEY PAID NO FEDERAL TAXES FOR 10 YEARS and that ROMNEY COULD CLEAR THIS UP ANY TIME BY RELEASING HIS TAX RETURNS WHICH HE REFUSES TO DO. I haven’t looked at all these troll concerning columns carefully to see whether they have been constructed as link bait for moderates and soft Republicans, but it is certainly possible.
hueyplong
ThatLeftTurninABQ, Harry Reid is more like George Meade (at best). But the mere fact that he’s not being McClellan is worth something.
We’re still waiting for Sherman. It will be a happy day when she arrives.
Maude
@Libby Spencer:
Uh, huh. You’ll be a regular commenter in 5 4 3…
Linda Featheringill
Righteous rant, Brother.
jl
@quannlace: “Burden” and “proof” are not highly relevant issues in this debate.
Romney says ‘trust me’.
Reid says ‘trust me’.
I’m tired of silly nit picking navel gazing BS on this stuff.
Edit: wrt to your question about probabilities: How often have politicians and big shots shived candidates they do not like, regardless of party? How many people dislike Romney? Probabilities are not as low as you imply.
Balconesfault
With that piece, the real Mother Jones is weeping from heaven.
giltay
@jl: I was about to correct what I said above to say that the difference between Reid’s and Romney’s positions is that Romney is saying, “Trust me,” and Reid is only saying, “Don’t trust him.” Asking people to be sceptical is a different thing than asking people to have blind faith.
The Other Chuck
Hearsay? Yes. Is hearsay all we’ve fucking got? Why yes it is. There are things that are legitimately kept private. The tax returns of a POTUS candidate are not fucking one of them.
I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the Drum all day.
fasteddie9318
Shorter KDrum:
“Harry Reid’s statement that somebody told him that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for 10 years lacks evidence and is thus clearly a lie, which I have conclusively demonstrated despite having no evidence that he actually did lie.”
Nina
Y’know, people come down on Stewart, but I’m wondering if he didn’t add days to the story being in the news just by giving the news media the “even the liberal John Stewart” angle. Sort of a man-bites-dog side of the story.
As it is, the longer this stays in the news the more pressure on Romney to release the taxes already. Reid can coast on this for a while, then bring the issue back to prominence by adding more hints of exactly who this Bain investor who made the extraordinary claim is.
My money is still on McCain, though Gay and Huntsman are strong contenders.
Balconesfault
@quannlace: Anyone doubt that a sh**storm of bad business fortune would befall if the person who made the remark to Reid was outed?
eric
it has nothing to do with the impropriety of Reid’s statement itself. I think that the press wants to avoid beating up Romney on the issue to avoid killing the horse race early and to avoid appearing “liberal.” So, they bash Reid. Economics and learned behavior hand in hand
As for drum, standard sista soulja moment to enhance his original critiques. No reason to join a chorus of liberals here…nothing original to take credit for. But, when making a prescient point that is harsh on the GOP he can broderize himself by saying “I criticize” dems too. punditry 101
HelpThe99ers
This is how you do sharp-elbowed politics. I have nothing but respect for Senator Reid.
Romney has held an unshakeable death grip on his tax returns since he’s been a candidate for office – going way back when to his Massachusetts days.
Rachel had a great segment on how hypocritical he’s been – not releasing his returns, while criticizing his opponent for not releasing her husband’s returns – she released hers.
Romney could easily – easily – turn this into the equivalent of the birther issue, but his steadfast refusal to open up his records, just like every other Presidential candidate, and just like his dad, is another well-crafted nail in his political coffin.
Think about it – his campaign could turn Harry Reid into the exact equivalent of Donald Trump or, even worse, Orly Taitz. All he’d have to do is release his forms. He could even get extra mileage out of it by releasing them on a coffee mug.
I’d be very curious to see if his VP vetting team is looking at tax records. Heck, I’m surprised that Steve Schmidt hasn’t chimed in, one way or the other.
jl
@giltay: Thanks. I missed your comment and El Cid’s too. I agree with both of you. But I guess the point needs to be repeated, so maybe no harm done by my rendition of your points.
Steve LaBonne
People are just now noticing that Drum is a wannabe Broder with a two-digit IQ? He’s always been like this.
Harry Reid must be laughing his ass off, though. All the tidal wave of concern trolling and “fact-checking” does is keep the issue of Rmoney’s tax returns front and center, day after day. Keep it up, wankers.
Bulworth
This.
The Other Chuck
@HelpThe99ers:
He did. He said nothing in Romney’s returns disqualified him. After saying he’d never seen Romney’s returns. They’re not actually incompatible statements, since the vetting team likely told him the first point, but it does make you wonder how in the loop he was.
El Cid
@jl: I’m sorry to have to emphasize this point again: Reid is not accusing Romney of having done anything illegal.
He didn’t say that he failed to pay due income taxes, or illegally did this or that — just that he paid no federal income taxes, i.e., the amount he owned on his federal income taxes after all said and done, over ten years, was $0.00.
If Romney was a true big-baller, he’d be laughing about it on Rush Limbaugh’s show in Mittworld’s version of a hip hop star’s self-promotion of how many Bentley’s he owns, etc.
[Note: This was a point you were making, and I meant that it was unfortunate that it has to be emphasized publicly by all sorts of people who talk about it in such away that it sounds like an awful irresponsible charge of criminality on Romdroid’s part.]
Dennis SGMM
The even shorter Kevin “Beat me like a” Drum:
How will people know we’re Democrats if we start fighting back?
The Other Chuck
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Reid’s source was Bill Bain?
Garbo
What the hell happened with Dana Bash’s confirming of Reid’s story that she had also spoken to the same source? Wasn’t she on Anderson Cooper’s show?
Rob in Buffalo
@BerkeleyMom: These things are always useful to keep in mind. The one that always boggled my mind is, imagine that a Democratic administration outed a covert CIA operative for political purposes. Seriously, wrap your head around that counterfactual. The Repubs would have started impeachment proceedings within a week, and Fox News’ and Limbaugh’s collective heads would have exploded.
Also, DennisSGMM at #80: That is awesome.
Keith G
Zandar, I want to believe that you are not a person who carelessly throws together ignorant writing, so I would really find it cool if your behaviors on line did not at times point in that direction.
Must you personally attack Drum because he feels Reid crossed a line? Why don’t you just stick to making your best case about why Drum’s (along with some other Democratic leaders) ideas are wrong without the petulance?
Personally, I am glad Reid has done this. It a brilliant short-term move. At the same time, I hope that this does not start a trend of Senate leaders using the floor of the Senate to make an unsubstantiated attacks on the leadership of the other party; though, I imagine it will.
BTW, I think it’s actually far-fetched that someone in Mitt’s inner circle came to Reid with insider info on Romney’s tax filings. Maybe it happened, but I have a lot of doubts.
Anyway Zandar, decimate Drum’s ideas anyway you like with facts, but your personal animosity in no way builds an attractive argument.
Keith G
Zandar, I want to believe that you are not a person who carelessly throws together ignorant writing, so I would really find it cool if your behaviors on line did not at times point in that direction.
Must you personally attack Drum because he feels Reid crossed a line? Why don’t you just stick to making your best case about why Drum’s (along with some other Democratic leaders) ideas are wrong without the petulance?
Personally, I am glad Reid has done this. It a brilliant short-term move. At the same time, I hope that this does not start a trend of Senate leaders using the floor of the Senate to make an unsubstantiated attacks on the leadership of the other party; though, I imagine it will.
BTW, I think it’s actually far-fetched that someone in Mitt’s inner circle came to Reid with insider info on Romney’s tax filings. Maybe it happened, but I have a lot of doubts.
Anyway Zandar, decimate Drum’s ideas anyway you like with facts, but your personal animosity in no way builds an attractive argument.
FormerSwingVoter
Why are so many people trying to fit Jon Stewart and Kevin Drum in the same boat?
Jon Stewart is a comedian. He makes fun of people. That’s what he does.
El Cid
What the fuck has happened to Harry Reid?
Maybe he finally started not just talking to Nancy Pelosi, but listening.
El Cid
What the fuck has happened to Harry Reid?
Maybe he finally started not just talking to Nancy Pelosi, but listening.
karen marie
@Steve:
What tactic are you referring to? Asking a legitimate question? Because, really, that’s all Reid has done. It’s pretty common knowledge that as a percentage of their income, the wealthy do not pay as much as the non-wealthy. Given that Romney has a net worth that equals the net worth of, what, the last six presidents together and promises, if elected, to make the tax burden of people such as himself lighter, asking to see his tax returns in advance of the election is perfectly legitimate.
Nylund
The worst part of Drum’s piece is where he equates Reid with birthers. You see, Drum can’t prove Romney paid his taxes, but neither can he prove Obama was born in the US.
Because, in one case, we have official US gov’t documents verified and confirmed by numerous gov’t officials. In the other case, we have a whole lot of zero, zip, zilch. Totally the same thing, right? Both sides do it!
Rob in Buffalo
@BerkeleyMom: These things are always useful to keep in mind. The one that always boggled my mind is, imagine that a Democratic administration outed a covert CIA operative for political purposes. Seriously, wrap your head around that counterfactual. The Repubs would have started impeachment proceedings within a week, and Fox News’ and Limbaugh’s collective heads would have exploded.
Also, DennisSGMM at #80: That is awesome.
RossinDetroit
Is Drum trying to stake out the moral high ground and shake his finger disapprovingly at Reid in order to appear more Centrist and Serious? If so, that’s a weak play and a dick move.
Rob in Buffalo
@BerkeleyMom: These things are always useful to keep in mind. The one that always boggled my mind is, imagine that a Democratic administration outed a covert CIA operative for political purposes. Seriously, wrap your head around that counterfactual. The Repubs would have started impeachment proceedings within a week, and Fox News’ and Limbaugh’s collective heads would have exploded.
Also, DennisSGMM at #80: That is awesome.
Culture of Truth
Here’s the thing. Even if everything Drum said is correct – if you got a chance to play in the Super Bowl, but tackling was against your ethics, how do you think the game would turn out?
jl
@El Cid: thanks for reemphasizing point. Seems to me some liberals and progressives start with a alot of confusion and false assumptions, maybe from Stockholm syndrome regarding GOP BS, in their heads, and their analysis is hopeless from the get go.
Reid is just playing the Romney trsut me game back in his face, but from a more legitimate position. I cannot understand how these nincompoop googoo pundits cannot see it.
I see from fivethirtyeight blog that Obama’s chances of winning have inched above 72 percent with 300 electoral votes, and almost 51 percent of popular vote. So, looks like maybe a large part of the non insane 73 percent of ordinary people who undergo everyday reality therapy on a regular basis can see through the BS.
jwb
@Garbo: I don’t know. I just presume Dana Bash’s confirmation fell under the category of inconvenient fact is inconvenient. I also have a strong suspicion that, like Dana Bash, the whole damned media knows exactly who the source is but is too chicken to say so.
TK-421
This is my favorite part of Drum’s pointless handwringing:
Here, let me edit that for you, Kevin:
So let me get this straight: Reid repeats something about Romney that even he admits he cannot prove and that’s “contemptible stuff,” but when Drum does the exact fucking same thing to Reid he’s just appealing to our better angels or something.
Like Aaron Sorkin, Kevin Drum gives liberals a bad reputation.
Rob in Buffalo
@BerkeleyMom: These things are always useful to keep in mind. The one that always boggled my mind is, imagine that a Democratic administration outed a covert CIA operative for political purposes. Seriously, wrap your head around that counterfactual. The Repubs would have started impeachment proceedings within a week, and Fox News’ and Limbaugh’s collective heads would have exploded.
Also, DennisSGMM at #80: That is awesome.
jwb
@Garbo: I don’t know. I just presume Dana Bash’s confirmation fell under the category of inconvenient fact is inconvenient. I also have a strong suspicion that, like Dana Bash, the whole damned media knows exactly who the source is but is too chicken to say so.
TK-421
This is my favorite part of Drum’s pointless handwringing:
Here, let me edit that for you, Kevin:
So let me get this straight: Reid repeats something about Romney that even he admits he cannot prove and that’s “contemptible stuff,” but when Drum does the exact fucking same thing to Reid he’s just appealing to our better angels or something.
Like Aaron Sorkin, Kevin Drum gives liberals a bad reputation.
General Stuck
In politics, not one can hear you lie in space. Harry didn’t lie, he just cast his line out there in the general direction of Mitt’s tax returns. And the republican sharks took the bait, but with no where to run. They are trying, and pounding away at a guy who isn’t on the ballot, all for a big FAIL, because the only thing at the end of that line are missing tax returns. And Romney refusing to release them.
But I think there is a sub text strategy also going on between Obama and his attack dog surrogates, that has made an early calculation, that it is better to let the other guy define himself, with minimal effort put forth for the wingnuts to outrage themselves into the caricature that they really are. Or, neutralizing the perennial strength the wingnuts always rely on, from being the white majority party. To turn that inside out so that the world gets a good look at the ugly of entitlement, privilege, and the supreme arrogance of those things unvarnished, instead of the usual subtle use of representing the white majority for positive effect.
Democrats have ceded this role to the wingers ever since Reagan, letting him put us as a party in a permanent defensive crouch of trepidation for going at the jugular of these pompous shitheads/ And thus allowed republicans to look strong but wrong, as Clinton once said, to win elections — as the voters preference of the perception that dems take the flip side role of weak but right. Not this time. as Obama and team have decided to go for the brass ring of Strong AND Right.
Rob in Buffalo
@BerkeleyMom: These things are always useful to keep in mind. The one that always boggled my mind is, imagine that a Democratic administration outed a covert CIA operative for political purposes. Seriously, wrap your head around that counterfactual. The Repubs would have started impeachment proceedings within a week, and Fox News’ and Limbaugh’s collective head would have exploded.
Also, DennisSGMM at #80: That is awesome.
Nellcote
@quannlace:
Consider, in THIS situation Harry has access to all sorts of Mormon sources that we on the outside don’t.
Why hasn’t anyone asked McCain what was in the tax returns?
NCSteve
People in Punditville really do seem to have completely lost any understanding of what a “lie” is. Maybe after the unending avalanche of right wing mendacity since 1993, it’s only something that litigators (save your jokes, I’ve heard them all) and logic professors give a shit about anymore.
But let me help you out here, Kevvie. A “misrepresentation” has a single component: a statement of fact that is contrary to objectively determinable fact. If the statement is not about an objectively determinable fact, it is an opinion.
A “lie,” by contrast, has two components: 1) a misrepresentation combined with 2) knowledge, or at least reckless disregard, of the representation’s falsity.
Sometimes, the truth or falsity of a statement of fact may be theoretically objectively determinable but only by reference to information which is unobtainable or concealed. Such statements cannot be classified as “lies” precisely because the truth or falsity of the underlying representation cannot be determined by reference to available evidence.
And here’s where I get a major case of butthurt from all pearl-clutching and smelling salt sniffing: they are defining “lie” as any statement that cannot be verified by reference to available evidence. BUT ONLY WHEN THE PERSON MAKING SUCH STATEMENTS IS HARRY REID. If that’s what a “lie” is, then every single word every written by every journalist that cited to unnamed sources is a “lie.” And, even more to the point, by this same definition of the word “lie,” every single word Mitt Fucking Romney has uttered about his payment of taxes in years other than 2010 and, to a limited extent, 2011, is a “lie.”
Yep, that’s what’s really giving me the butthurt. Reid says “according to a source I could, but refuse, to share with you, Mitt Romney paid no taxes for a period of about ten years” and he he is pilloried and shame-shamed as a liar. However, when Romney says “according to a source I could, but refuse, to share with you, Mitt Romney did not either pay no taxes for a period of about ten years!,” our fearless fact checkers and the self-appointed guardians of the left’s political hymens say “well if Mitt Romney says it, it must be true! Shame on you Harry Reid for doing the THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING MITT HAS BEEN DOING!!!!!!”
different-church-lady
As Casey Stengal once said, “Can’t anyone play this here game?”
D. Mason
I do wonder if John McCain has any Bain stock…
jl
@Nellcote:
” Why hasn’t anyone asked McCain what was in the tax returns? ”
Cause they don’t need to; McCain’s 2008 people are leaking like rusted out sieves?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
__
Impending retirement (i.e. he isn’t going to run again for relection), that would be my guess. A man can put up with an awful lot of shit if he has an important job to do and he sees keeping his mouth shut (or at least being diplomatic about it) as an essential part of getting that job done to the best of his ability. But when he doesn’t have to keep his mouth shut any more, because the job is almost over, look out. And Harry Reid has put up with an awful lot of shit over the years. The paybacks are going to be hell, methinks.
Steve
@Garbo: There’s a lot of confusion about what Dana Bash confirmed or didn’t confirm. I don’t believe she talked to Reid’s source. I think the upshot is that she claimed to have talked to a second source who said simply that Reid’s source was a credible person. It’s all very confusing.
hueyplong
If a Bain “insider” actually did say this stuff (years of zero federal income taxes) to Reid, isn’t it likely that the insider “knows” it because Romney bragged about it?
How else would he know?
And isn’t the likelihood of such bragging completely consistent with our impression of Romney as an entitled douche?
Cassidy
@FormerSwingVoter: That’s a load of BS. That’s Stewarts excuse when he says something controversial or takes heat for not syaing something. He’s a pundit at this point with a large audience who primarily watch him fo rnews and information. When he does the “both sides do it schtick” he reinforces that notion to a bunch of younger assholes who think that voting for Gary Johnson is the way to show our gov’t they’re serious about wanting a thrid party.
blondie
How is it disingenuous to say that all Romney has to do is release his tax returns?
Most of the national pols release years of tax returns without blinking. In recent memory, only the Romneys opt to say “you people” have all you deserve.
oliver's Neck
Kevin also needs to learn that the word sophistry doesn’t mean, “an argument I disagree with or I think is beside the point”. It is, most likely, factually true that Politifact doesn’t know the contents of Romney’s tax returns, and knowing what’s in those returns is the entire point.
But, Kevin is clearly in a career-making mode and therefore has no truck with reason these days.
jl
I don’t think it’s complicated. Who do you trust? You trust Romney? You trust Reid? Who do you trust a little more, a little less, maybe a lot less? And how come?
What are the stakes of trust?
Reid just helping clarify folks’ thinking along those lines, is all.
Goofballs like Drum can jabber all they want. Won’t make no difference.
General Stuck
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Nah, Reid pulled a similar strike at McCain in 2008, saying he was too unstable to be president.
jl
@General Stuck: Difference was that every one saw the evidence about McCain back then. As in, McCain grandstanding on Georgia/Ossetia conflict, and meltdown in financial panic.
Ol’ Harry was just trying to be helpful in sorting things out for folks, is all. IMHO.
LanceThruster
Act first, apologize later*.
*When dealing with Rethuglicans, skipping part #2 is highly recommended (and more times than not, completely unnecessary).
yopd1
@HelpThe99ers: Easily remedied by Harry saying he would apologize if Romney showed he paid taxes AND Boehner et al apologized for not repudiating the birthers in their party, especially the elected ones, they’ve kept as committee chairmen (Cliff Stearns, FL)
FormerSwingVoter
@El Cid:
I think Reid has always honestly believed in that “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” crap. He really believed that if he treated the other guys decently that they would be willing to work with him, even if only behind closed doors.
Basically, the modern Republican party is what happened to Harry Reid. And he is not happy about it.
El Cid
@General Stuck: I think it’s more than strategy.
I think that (and I’ve been saying so repeatedly) Obama and major Democrats just really, really don’t like Mitt Romney.
He has personally pissed them off. There are parts of his character and behavior which for some insane reasons are more offputting to these politicians than evil a vile simulacrum of humanity like Dick Cheney or mean jeering boob like G. W. Bush Jr. or callous cackling simpleton like Sarah Palin.
And I think they know that anyone would be likely to share this opinion of him.
DonkeyKong
He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea
Beautiful loser
Where you gonna fall?
When you realize
You just can’t have it all
He’s your oldest and your best friend
If you need him, he’ll be there again
He’s always willing to be second-best
A perfect lodger, a perfect guest
General Stuck
@jl:
Everyone sees that Romney is a money grubbing liar, also too. The point I was making were to the left wing meme Harry is weak or something along those lines. I don’t think so, at least as senate leaders go. Seems like the former naysayers are all about Harry now though. I always have seen him as a tough hombre, albeit with a low key demeanor, when called for. So this is Harry sorting things out, absolutely, but he did that in 2008 as well. So nothing new seen by me. It is amusing that he has become the latest progressive hero after being worse than Hitler. Wonders never cease.
Just Some Fuckhead
Shrill.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
Sure, Sir Mittens. We trust you.
But, again, trust, but verify.
Fork over the returns. Build trust.
susan
Harry Reid is doing something really shocking: taking a gun to the gun fight.
Bravo, Harry!
Steve LaBonne
I feel so awful that a great man like Rmoney has to put up with these vile, truly vile, insinuations. Now the poor man has had to go on Fux to demand, demand I tell you, that Harry reveal his source. And we know that Harry will just laugh at the poor, persecuted slob. If only there were some way for Rmoney to put this whole thing to rest once and for all. Surely if we all put our heads together and think really, really hard, we can come up with a way. Thinking, thinking…
Ruckus
@El Cid:
They think it against the laws of the Universe—guffaw, buh, buh, you’re supposed to just take it!
You know this of course but all bullies get upset when you call out their bullshit. And in this case Reid didn’t even do that, he simply in a somewhat roundabout way asked to see the tax returns.
kay
I just don’t think it’s a lie. If no one told Harry Reid that Romney hasn’t paid taxes in ten years then it’s a lie.
Someone had to do something. Media were just going to sporadically and inneffectually whine about the taxes for months.
What are we supposed to do? Subpeona them?
I want to see the Romney boys trust returns too, BTW.
Dr. Squid
I get the impression that totebaggers are drawn to Rmoney because they see themselves in him – someone that spineless and weak can’t possibly do any long term harm.
General Stuck
@kay:
I think the story behind the right wing rage, is something republicans do all the time, when they royally fuck up. And now it is dawning on them that they are rallying behind a candidate they chose, that if not unelectable, at least is with some sizable skeletons in his closet that goes to neutralizing his one selling point. So the rage is being pointed outward, with the lick and a promise, that if they squeal loud enough, and click their heels, they will end up in Kansas and none of this really happened.
Ruckus
@Joey Maloney:
I’ll bet there’s lots of simply awful things in them, maybe not anything illegal, but awful to the 99% who can’t take most of the deductions and doesn’t have enough money to put any offshore. Look at the shitstorm the horse deductions have had. Nothing awful? I’ll bet 2 whole dollars there’s lots in there mittens never wants the public or maybe his business associates and quite possibly his church to see.(Two dollars is a lot to me right now!) Being audited by the public may be much tougher for mittens that by the IRS.
nastybrutishntall
TNC is now bemoaning the loss of civility. Please.
LanceThruster
At least the run on fainting couches will be good for the furniture manufacturing sector.
J.D. Rhoades
I’m personally enjoying the sight of the local wingnuts screaming like murdered bunnies at having the Democrats do to their candidate what they’ve tried to do to every Democrat since Dukakis.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
The discussion about Reid is tedious. Of course it can’t be judged as false or true. What did Romney think when he decided to withhold his tax returns? That no one would make a charge like this?
General Stuck
@El Cid:
No one likes Romney, that is just a given. Obama isn’t known as no drama Obama for nothing. As he and his team rarely react out of anger, with their politicking. And that dislike, likely makes it easier to go full negative on Romney with fewer inhibitions. But they watched the GOP primary, like all of us, and took note of Romney’s strategy of hitting hard, nasty, and sustained, usually first, or upping the attack beyond the level they were attacked. Which then makes any further response by your opponent seen as reacting/defending rather than acting. And it is always better in politics to be acting, or attacking. Reid and Obama caught Romney and crew flat footed, and they were surprised at the sight of democrats behaving this way, and not standing up straight as a passive target.
Nicole
“Whatever your fight, don’t be ladylike.” – Mother Jones
kay
@General Stuck:
I think Mitt Romney should have to defend his ideas. One of his ideas is he should pay a tax rate that is half of mine because he’s an “investor” and I’m not.
So fuck him. Get out there and defend your tax rate, Mitt. You’re the business expert. Explain why you paying less taxes than I do as a percentage of income benefits me and the other 50 million people you need to win.
El Cid
@General Stuck: I know, I know how controlled Obama is, and I didn’t suggest he was acting out of irrational anger.
I just sense a real distaste — or, in the words of Conasan and Crowley — disdain for Romney from Obama that I didn’t detect from him for anyone else.
General Stuck
@El Cid:
agree
Carl Nyberg
Did anyone else notice someone screen name “McMegan” is uprating the comments supporting K-Drum on the blog?
xian
@Carl Nyberg: god no. you read that crap?
Beauzeaux
“Romney’s been telling lots of lies, so why shouldn’t we?”
Reference, please? I’m just a teensy bit skeptical about this.
JWL
You can take the boy out of Orange County, but you can’t take Orange County out of Kevin Drum.
jl
For those commenters saying that what Reid is doing to GOP is same thing GOP has done to Democrats for years.
I disagree, it is not the same thing. The same thing would be Reid secretly paying thugs to spread the word that, in fact, Romney did not pay any taxes for ten years. And then if anyone investigated these charges that were ‘out there’, then the thugs would spread vile rumors about the investigator. Out of blue charges of sexual perversion are a standard tactic.
Reid just committed very refined and appropriate political theatre: she showed he did not tell. He pointed the way and let the audience think it out.
Who do you trust? Who should you trust? What are the costs of misplaced trust? Is it more reasonable to trust Reid, or Romney?
I hope we hear more from Harry in this mode. IRA? Thishyere Romney, that feller, he went out and ketched hisself a IRA, sat on his back porch for years dammit, and taught that sucker to jump. You bet you he done taught it to jump!
ABL
You’re on fire today.
ArrogantDemon
And this is why Democrats lose, fuckers like K-Drum going on about “morality” when you’re in the lion’s den
A satchel of dick for this pansy to masticate on, and sit down somewhere, let the grown folks take care of this
jl
@ArrogantDemon: I think what Reid is doing is very moral and ethical. I find no fault in old Harry. And a lot of fault in Romney.
priscianusjr
I do not think we Democrats should stoop to the same tactics as the Republicans, yet I’m fine with what Harry Reid said. You figure it out.
pluege
K-Drum has his head shoved up his ass again, I see.
indeed, you should do what I did 4 years ago – STOP READING HIM! Then maybe he’ll go away and just be what he is – a thumb sucking, holier the thou member of the Joke-Line house of imbeciles instead of masquerading as liberals.
MCA1
@kay: This. The issue was dying on the vine because the media will not give up the close horserace narrative this early. Reid plucked it off that vine and is trying to make some wine with it because no one else will, and now everyone’s bitching that he’s getting a little grape juice on the floor. Even Maddow was basically condemning him last night.
My concern is that, since there’s so much miss-the-pointism and misplaced outrage out there directed at Reid, that if Mittens decided to actually release more returns and they showed he paid more than $0.00 in taxes in any given year over a decade (which is almost certainly true), that “Harry Reid’s a proven liar!!!” would be all we heard for the two weeks anyone could stand to pay attention afterwards. I don’t want the devastating effects of the public getting to finally pick through those returns to be neutralized. I never would have thought that the entire media, much of the reliable left included, would have made this story an opportunity to rag on Harry Reid’s ethics and turn it into the definitive proof of Fermat’s Both Sides Do It Enigma. But now that they have, I think the backlash could overwhelm what’s actually in Romney’s tax returns, should we be obliged to see them.
Where I take heart, however, is that the above calculation is probably something Reid gets. So he’s decided that, based on whatever knowledge of the returns he might actually have, he’s willing to live with that risk. Because Romney will NEVER release the returns.
Long Walk Home
FKIN’ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ZANDAR !!!!!!!!!!!!! GET SOME BROTHER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BRING IT AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!
amk
@booferama: egg.sack.lee.
rikyrah
fuck this whining about the ‘ veracity’ of Harry Reid.
Willard lies every fucking time he opens his mouth.
Has never told the truth about the President.
Maybe someone ought to tell Drum to get his ass to a computer and watch Rachel Maddow’s shows from last week, where she detailed, quite well, that the entire tax thing is a repeat of what he did in 2002, complete with the ‘ oh, I’ll get back to you about those tax returns’. only then, it was the Boston Globe, and this time, it was ABC.
Guess what – Willard fucking lied.
Guess what else came up in 2002 – RETROACTIVITY.
Yes.
so, Drum should get his ass to a computer, watch Maddow’s segments and then take a strong dose of
S-T-F-U
Tired of these whiny ass titty babies.
I love that the Prudential Building is paying these wusses no mind.
GO HARRY REID!!!
marindenver
Thanks Zandar for telling it like it is. Although I usually like Drum and his work this is really, really, really stupid. RMoney is a total, complete, lying a-hole who could easily, EASILY, disprove all the stuff about his taxes (which, of course, has no relevance at all, nosir, none, to the campaign he’s running) so, of course, REID’s to blame for sticking his toe into RMoney’s ass over the issue. GROW A SPINE KEVIN DRUM!! If you want us to win the election in question, we’re all gonna need one.
Dean Booth
Kevin Drum, writing about Planned Parenhood, quotes j. Goldberg:
Three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood
and uses this quote to support his suspicions about Komen (fine).
So, apparently he thinks it’s ok to cite sources when he thinks what they say is true, but not so much when he disagrees with them. If Drum disagreed with Goldburg’s point, would he accuse Goldberg of lying?
dsc
No one has yet quoted the best piece yet on Reid’s brilliant move. Here is TBogg at his best:
the whole thing is AWEsome!
dsc
folks, that last paragraph should be in the block quote as well; the original shows that it is. anyway, just so you know, I’m not claiming the brilliant line:
grandpa john
@MCA1: People really should understand what they are commenting on before posting, Re-read Reid’s comments, he never accused Mitt of not paying any taxes so he can not be a liar if mitt does prove he paid taxes, Reid has said he doesn’t know if it is true or not, he made no accusation. he simply repeated what someone had told him.
brantl
There really needs to be an ad from the Obama camp that says: “If it’s OK for several of John McCain’s campaign people to look at many years of Mitt Romney’s taxes, why can’t you see them, too? Would he seem less qualified in your mind than Sarah Palin, as he was in John McCain’s?” , and then have the quote from McGrumpy, where he says that he picked the most qualified VP candidate from the field he had, then list the ones that he considered, with Mittens listed last.
MCA1
@grandpa john: Right back at ‘ya, Chief. I would have thought that it was perfectly clear that I’m not discussing the entirety of or any shading or hedging in Reid’s statements. The media meme on this, picked up by just repeating the incessant whining from everyone in the Romney camp and the GOP generally, is simply “Harry Reid alleged Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for a decade.” Period. No nuance reported, as per usual. Therefore, I fear that when and if that statement – whether or not it bears a great resemblance to what Reid actually said, and I’m fully cognizant that it doesn’t, thanks – is shown false, the Republican response and therefore mainstream media response will be all about how Reid’s a gigantic liar and liar liar liar liar liar besmirching the honorable Romney, blah blah blah. And not, as we’d expect in a normal environment, the parading of the various horribles in Romney’s returns and a glancing acknowledgment of Reid’s informant being inaccurate but it was all probably just a bluff and it worked. In other words, I love what Reid’s done but in the current press environment; I’m just recognizing that there’s almost no scenario in which the media won’t do its damnedest to make any turn of events into a Republican win.