It's not just what's in Mitt Romney's tax returns; it's the very fact that he flatly refuses to release them. That's what had legendary investigative journalist Carl Bernstein so livid on Wednesday's Morning Joe.
"This is an extraordinary moment," he said. "How can we have a candidate for the presidency of the United States who is unwilling to share his tax returns with the people of the country? I think that most reasonable people are going to say—who have an open mind—are going to say, we don't want this. Almost anything but this. It's wrong. It's simply wrong."
But while Romney's refusal to release more than two years of his tax returns may be unusual from a historical perspective, it's far from an isolated incident in this campaign season. Romney and Obama are arguably running the least transparent presidential campaigns of any major party candidates in modern American history.
Though the president has released his tax returns for the last 12 years, both his campaign and Romney's have adopted an extraordinary practice: granting certain interviews only on the condition that they can review and even edit quotes before they get published. On Monday, The New York Times reported:
The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalism’s perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now, with a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.
Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House — almost anyone other than spokesmen who are paid to be quoted. (And sometimes it applies even to them.) It is also commonplace throughout Washington and on the campaign trail.
The Romney campaign insists that journalists interviewing any of Mitt Romney’s five sons agree to use only quotations that are approved by the press office. And Romney advisers almost always require that reporters ask them for the green light on anything from a conversation that they would like to include in an article.
And of course, an unprecedented amount of campaign spending this year comes in the form of "dark money" from anonymous donors—though Republicans' dark money outweighs Democrats' by several orders of magnitude.
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It's no longer we the people. It's them, the boss of us.
One can hardly blame President Obama for being a little leery when it comes to the media. He has certainly been burned by them o. Many occasion.
As for Romney, again his reticence in producing his returns speaks volumes as to his arrogance and the fact that he is obviously hiding 'something.' I wouldn't vote for HOM if he were the ONLY candidate in this race.
I think Romney's religion might be a clue. It is prone to secrecy and does not permit anyone to question its leadership. While the Bush campaign was fairly clearly pro-big Oil without stating it outright, the Romney campaign purports to be about nothing but the economy. But one has to wonder just what it is that really animates it.
IMO, what animates RoMoney's campaign is RoMoney's EGO. He just wants to be President PERIOD. No other agenda. He wants the glory and attendant power to be known as POTUS now and former POTUS forevermore.
That's not to say that it isn't one more step in the GOP's quest to turn USA into a Corpocracy, but as to RoMoney's personal agenda, that's just icing on the cake.
Considering that "reporting the news" is no longer about reporting the news but rather about ratings, I don't blame anyone in the news for wanting approval rights on quotes. We can see how that barely even works these days.
P.S. - Don't quote me on that! It's off the record and I won't recall ever saying it even though it is recorded for posterity!
"granting certain interviews only on the condition that they can review and even edit quotes before they get published."
Uh duh. you hacks in the media will let the campaigns run ads distorting the words of the candidates.
I'd want editorial control too.
The media will let the candidates say anything they want even if it's a lie. It's the all mighty dollar in play!
Mitt Romney is a puppet of the Mormon Church, not the old men presiding over it, the spiritual powers behind it. Mitt, bless his heart, doesn't want to be president. The Mormon Church intends to buy the White House and put Romney in it. Not releasing his tax returns is Mitt's way of fighting against the spiritual powers behind the Mormon Church, to thwart their plan. To gain an existential understanding of the cult that produced Mitt Romney, and to get your socks scared, off read The Assassination of Spiro Agnew, available at:
www.amazon.com/Assassination-Spiro-Agnew-novel-ebook/dp/B0083EGJXC
Its brown-eyed, part-Mexican Mormon assassin dramatizes the Mormon superiority complex manifesting as racism, sexism, jingoism, and an anti-federal government temperament. It shows the similarities between Islam and Mormonism and reveals the secrets of Mormon mind control, the spiritual powers behind the cult.
Here's a review:
“With a clarity of language and vision unsurpassed in contemporary American prose, Steven Janiszewski's Assassination of Spiro Agnew takes us into a U.S. mazed with madness and Mormonism and all things Utah, a U.S. that was then and still is. Do we need a novel, even as brilliant as this one, about a young man on a divine mission to assassinate the Vice President because he is too liberal? Yes, now more than ever. Readers, welcome to a masterpiece.”
tomwhalen.com
Read The Assassination of Spiro Agnew.