Mitt Romney is still running for office, for Pete's sake

By Richard K. Barry

Who is advising this guy? Mitt Romney, I mean. He took to the friendly airwaves of Fox & Friends to try out a new spin on why Americans shouldn't be allowed to see more than a couple of years of his tax returns. His argument was that if he released more returns it would simply be fodder for the no-good, lying Obama campaign to "distort and be dishonest about."

Isn't that great? Romney's whole approach on everything is that he's just not going to say anything specific about anything because the others guys will engage in distortion. ("If elected I swear to do nothing but sing patriotic songs for four years. Just try to distort the words of those gems.")

As Steve Benen points out, that's a bit of a hard sell. "He's going to keep his tax returns secret and hidden from public view because... Obama might find stuff?" This is effectively the same thing, Benen writes, as Romney saying, "I can't release my tax returns; I'm running for office for Pete's sake."

Benen's little joke there is a reference to one of the GOP presidential debates in which Romney said he complained to his landscaping contractor that he would have to get rid of the illegal immigrants in his employ because he, Romney, was running for office. Presumably, if Romney was not running for office, illegal immigrants would be okey-dokey. Similarly, Romney doesn't want to release more tax returns because he's running for office and whatever is in them would be a problem, for Pete's sake.

Here's Romney telling those wonderfully intelligent hosts on Fox & Friends why he won't release more returns, and below that is the debate clip where he talks about his landscaping issues. Does any of this make any sense? Does this guy ever make sense?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)