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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jules Witcover
In the expanding political universe of anonymous allegations and nonresponsive responses, the latest exchange between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and prospective Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney takes the cake.
At issue is Romney's refusal to release more than two years of past income tax returns. Democrats have chided him by noting that his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, made 12 years of his returns public in his failed bid for the 1968 Republican nomination.
Reid started it all by saying in an interview with the
Romney, fresh from his European trip and back on the campaign trail, called Reid on it in an interview with conservative
The former Massachusetts governor certainly has a gripe about Reid quoting an anonymous source for his allegation. But Romney again chose an unfortunate phrase with which to berate him; after all, if only Romney would "put up" his past tax returns in question, it would be the obvious way to get Reid to "shut up." Romney then proceeded to play the same game by saying "the
Romney can fall back on the view that the two past returns he has released meet the legal requirement of the
It's part of the plague of new-media laxness these days for sources, named or unnamed, to make allegations without specifically substantiating them, and for news organizations, print, audio or video, to run with them. It's a plague on both houses -- the accuser and the accused -- to wage this shadow-boxing in public, leaving the voters to try to sort it all out.
The news media in recent years have made an effort -- in newsprint fact-checking and occasionally on radio or television -- to ascertain if either side is telling the truth, bending it, or flat-out lying. But that usually occurs after the cat is out of the bag. The old journalistic caveat that you don't publish or air something if you haven't checked it out first and found it to be true, has pretty much been trampled in the process of keeping the political pot boiling.
In this accentuated era of anything goes, politicians of all parties and ideological bents are guilty of poisoning the dialogue, as are purveyors of political news in all media who spread it mindlessly. No, Harry Reid should not have made the anonymous allegations, and Mitt Romney should not have blamed the
Even without Reid's nameless accuser, in light of serious questions about Romney's use of offshore tax havens, it would make political sense for him as a candidate for high public office simply to "put up" on those older tax returns rather than just "shut up" about them, which only allows the Democrats to continue exploiting voters' doubts. Unless, that is, he has something significant to hide.
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Mitt Romney: Put up or Shut Up | Politics
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