If you went outside at all last week, chances are relatively high that you got caught smack in the middle of a torrential Bain storm. Mitt Romney has leveraged his entire presidential credentials on his supposed sharp business acumen. So when the Obama campaign addressed the mountainous pile of insanely corrupt and, potential illegal, activities during his time at Bain Capital, the Romney campaign started sweating like an inmate in a Turkish prison. Further, the gobs of hair gel from Romney’s hair suddenly seemed to become flood plains as Romney and the Romney Campaign was squeamish and anxious. Since it appears that the Condi Rice Veepstakes diversionary tactic (Romney would sooner shop at Walmart than select the former controversial Secretary of State) is losing its novelty appeal, Romney looks to have found a fresh and new diversionary tactic with which to use to deflect legit media attention on his Bain days. And that diversionary tactic is going after the wife of a losing presidential candidate from all the way back in the 2004 election. And here I though Romney wanted to take us back to the Guilded era.
Despite the fact that Romney’s father (an actual hard-working Governor) released his tax returns, and despite the fact that nearly every Republican is calling for him to do so, the GOP hopeful derided the call to be more transparent by citing two failed presidential candidates, including the wife of one of those failed presidential candidates.
“John McCain ran for president and released two years of tax returns,” Romney explained on Fox & Friends. “John Kerry ran for president. You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow this wasn’t an issue.”
“The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more,” he continued. “More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try make a mountain out of and to distort and to be dishonest about. We’re going to put out two years of tax returns.”(Raw Story)
Oh, Mittens…how you love to sell us the snake-oil you use as a hair product.
Even though the finances of a candidate’s wife is totally irrelevant to the presidential process of transparency, and even though candidate’s wives should be off limits unless they secretly murdered a bus full of nuns and puppies, Teresa Heinz Kerry did in fact release her 2003 tax returns. Not only did she release her tax returns, but she was blasted by the Republican-friendly Wall Street Journal on a couple of occasions. Conversely, then democratic presidential nominee John Kerry released 20 years worth of returns by 2004.
It’s glaringly obvious to even the most unsophisticated political observer that Romney does not want the public to see all the nitty-gritty details on how he made all of his millions, but that certainly will not stop the master of the free market from equivocating and reaching far and wide to switch topics. Romney better get a golf umbrella since it only appears to Bain even harder from now until November.
Michael is a comedian/VO artist/Columnist extraordinaire, who co-wrote an award-nominated comedy, produces a chapter of Laughing Liberally, wrote for NY Times Laugh Lines, guest-blogged for Joe Biden, and writes a column for MSNBC.com affiliated Cagle Media. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook, Youtube, and like NJ Laughing Liberally Lab, Seriously, follow him or he’ll send you a photo of Rush Limbaugh bending over in a thong
