Romney Can Say Charges "Demonstrably False" Only When He Starts Demonstrating

Responding to Harry Reid's repeated charges that Romney isn't releasing his tax returns as presidential campaigns usually do (and as those being vetted for even minor government posts are inevitably required to do) because to do so would reveal the multi-millionaire has engaged in massive outrageous tax evasion for years, Mason Harrison, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said:

This is further proof that the president's campaign is willing to say whatever it takes to distract from his economic record, no matter how baseless, unfounded or demonstrably false their attacks are.

If these damaging claims were "demonstrably" false, one wonders why this "demonstration" is yet to arrive in the form of the tax returns demonstrating them. If the Romney campaign is so interested in "proof," one wonders why they fail to provide any proof that their candidate -- who has famously made repeated recourse to blind trusts and legalistic residential dodges and is known to have Swiss bank accounts and accounts in secretive tax havens like the Cayman Islands -- has indeed paid the taxes on his extraordinary fortune responsible citizens whose votes he is soliciting would expect him to pay as an especially fortunate, and one would expect especially grateful, fellow citizen.

There is ample proof that Romney has plenty to hide because he exerts a lot of energy hiding it, and the damage to his reputation he is taking week after week after week refusing to show more of his tax records like every other office holder routinely does strongly suggests that his risk-averse campaign would rather take these hits than the hits he would were whatever he is hiding revealed.

Hey, I could be wrong. Senator Reid could have been misinformed. The stories one hears across the Net of a Million Lies about charitable contributions to gay reparative therapists and investments in aborted fetal waste protein food trucks and medical bills for wives left out on car roofs and drassage horse bestiality porn, not to mention scandalously inadequate tithing, are all surely nonsense -- but see how rumors start in the absence of simple forthrightness on an issue like this?

As BooMan is saying now:

The charge is "out there." For ten years, Mitt Romney paid nothing at all in taxes. If it isn't true, then Romney has the easiest slam-dunk in history. He can make Harry Reid look like either a gullible fool or a complete liar. How could an honest Republican politician pass up such a golden opportunity to defend his honor while blasting the reputation of one of Washington's most powerful Democrats? What is in those tax returns that is so damaging to Romney's chances that he'd saddle himself with this controversy rather than humiliating his accusers? Pretty soon, Romney is going to announce his running mate. We'll chew that over for 72 hours or so, and then we'll go right back to asking Romney to release his tax returns. We'll want to know how many years of tax returns Romney saw from his running mate and why we can't see those, too. Romney gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain. And McCain chose Palin. No one is going to listen to Romney until he comes clean.

It is up to the man who is trying to earn my vote to show me I am wrong to worry about these things. A person runs for President of the United States by demonstrating to the American people that he is an honest and competent and trustworthy and responsible citizen who would work for the benefit of all Americans and not just for the personal profit at any cost to everybody else of Willard Mitt Romney.

So, c'mon, Robot Romney, provide your demonstration. Show us the damn tax returns like everybody running for national public office does. Follow the same rules everybody else does. We're waiting.