I guess I am just confused by Kevin Drum’s moral compass. He’s basically telling us that we need to seriously guard against abandoning a healthy respect for the importance of the truth. I get that part of it. But the context is an accusation made by Harry Reid that he has a very credible source that called him unsolicited and told him that Romney doesn’t want to release his tax returns because he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years. Kevin Drum seems absolutely certain that no one ever made this phone call to Harry Reid. I have no idea why he is so certain. But Mr. Drum seems to have no compunction whatsoever about accusing Harry Reid of lying, even though he doesn’t have any sources to cite backing up his claim that Reid is lying.
I think this is very strange. Most media observers who have criticized Reid have argued that he shouldn’t make such brash accusations based on nothing more than a single source who isn’t willing to go on the record. That’s applying a reasonable journalist’s standard to a politician, which is dubious to begin with, but at least it is an honest opinion. The idea is that it is wrong to accuse Romney of something so serious without more corroborative evidence. So, using that standard, how the hell does Kevin Drum think it is okay to question Harry Reid’s integrity without one single piece of evidence to back him up. He is completely guilty of doing exactly what he accuses of Harry Reid of doing, which is making an accusation without any real evidence to back it up.
And Kevin is trying to bail himself out by attacking one critic who went too far in excusing deceitfulness. That’s bullshit. You can’t take your worst critic and use them as a magic wand to exorcise all your more serious critics.
Kevin Drum has absolutely no basis for questioning Harry Reid’s integrity, but he has done so with gusto. Harry Reid didn’t just say that Romney is lying about his tax returns. He asserted that he learned that from a credible source. Drum doesn’t even claim to have a source.
So, if Mr. Drum is right about Reid, Drum can call someone a liar with absolutely nothing to back him up but Reid can’t call someone a liar with absolutely nothing to back him up.
I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all.
And don’t forget that the TradMed is having the vapors over something they do all the time. Using “sources” that never go “on the record.” It’s all quite silly.
Kevin Drum: the martyred Last Honest Man. (sobs)
Harry Reid isn’t some political pundit. He’s not some TEAGOP whose moral give-a-shitter is broken, and completely ethically challenged.
He’s the MAJORITY LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE. He’s also an ATTORNEY, and a Mormon. He’s higher up in the church than Romney.
Harry Reid has never bluffed. Not ever. He has no reason to. Have you ever known an attorney to not have the evidence to bak up a claim?
Harry has more than one source. I’ll bet he’s got three minimum.
McCain has been awfully quiet. Huntsman is the only GOP with any ethics. So you tihnk the McCain camp destroyed the returns they were given? Or the notes they made? I seriously doubt that.
Mitt has had to release returns before. I want the 19909-2009 returns. The ones that applied to the Tax Amnesty.
WTF? I am typing fail. I need sleep.
Kos over at the GOS thinks Huntsman Sr is the source
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118428/-It-s-John-Huntsman-Sr-right-Harry
Whatever could Romney do to exonerate himself from the evil lies of bad bad bad Harry Reid? Really wish I could think of something.
Kidding aside, this is why I get so angry at Democrats. All my life, we’ve been forming circular firing squads. In this case, Drum is defending himself at the expense of the team. Particularly when he starts dismissing Romney’s refusal to release tax returns, which is exactly what he does in his last post.
Reid’s tactics are brilliant. Whether he has evidence or not, I really don’t give a shit. I say this even though I’m a really really honest guy. I say it because Romney is covering up something in the tax returns. If Reid claims it’s “x” and Romney still won’t release them, people will begin to draw the conclusion that it must be “x” or worse.
Romney set himself up for this by lying about what’s in the returns. He deserves exactly what he’s getting. For Drum to undercut that argument to prove himself smarter or purer than everyone else is not only disloyal, it’s crap. Totally lightweight analysis.
He’s not that important in the grand scheme of things despite the fact that he’s my favorite pundit.
I just don’t get why he is so convinced Reid made it up.
I think it started with Kevin concluding that it was “inconceivable” that someone with Mitt’s wealth could avoid all taxes. (perhaps he was channeling Vizzini from The Princess Bride; not sure that’ll work out so well for him)
But there’s the usual weasel wording going on between “taxes” and “federal income taxes” that may make all the difference.
(I’m not sure that Reid said that ‘Mitt is lying’, got a cite? I think he just repeated that his source is credible, and his source said that Mitt paid no (federal income) tax over the period of a decade)
Mitt has lied about his tax returns, but AFAIK in only two areas: he said he’d release them when running for governor of MA, and didn’t; and he lied about what his tax forms said about his MA residency.
Mitt is a weasel and you have to parse his words very carefully.
I followed the cite trail. Interesting stuff to be sure. But totally irrelevant. This is not about getting Romney to release tax returns and 6 months from now noone will remember Harry Reid saying anything.
This is all about messaging, and planting a subliminal feeling about Romney. During the ’04 election, Kerry’s service record was savaged and lied about during the same time frame we are currently enduring. The result of this impression was somehow that Kerry was a channeling Clinton, but trying to appear courageous. The messaging was extremely effective, and no amount of ad buys was going to undo the damage.
In this case, Romney is being cast as someone who is shady and greedy. This certainly fits the public personna and will be quite effective in the October ad buys when Obama and Co will only have to use a dog whistle to remind people that Romney is a shady, greedy plutocrat.
The work has already been done.
PolitiFact has been making the same argument, more or less. It’s not quite as bad as when they said 40% is a majority, but it’s still quite a stretch.
and you know what kills in all of this.
Rachel Maddow has already proven that Willard IS A LIAR.
she proved that this is nothing but a repeat of what he did in 2002, and how, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he LIED.
about this same issue.
Yes, but what would Democrats be if we supported the message and didn’t start attacking each other for no reason whatsoever? Would we even know ourselves?
Drum is only doing his part to hold up the grand tradition of self destruction on the left. And why? Because he needs to be the smartest, holiest guy in the room.
Listen up Kevin; we’ll give you a gold star if you’ll just stop talking. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy watching Reid beat the crap out of a very vulnerable Romney. Then watch Romney, with no room to maneuver, attempt clumsy dog whistles about the scary black guy in the White House who wants to give money to lazy “collerd folks.” Watch Obama smartly counter-punch, making clear that Romney’s lying. With Romney’s poll numbers dipping ever lower, watch him float trial balloons designed to move him to the center by . . . oh, I don’t know — taking credit for health care reform in Massachusetts. Then watch the far right come completely unglued and start beating Romney with heavy clubs until their lap poodle whimpers pathetically and picks Paul Ryan as his running mate. Then watch as Romney’s campaign, with the weight of the most unpopular legislation tied around its neck, is drowned in Norquist’s karmic bathtub. Finally, watch as the entire disaster is pinned on Romney, leaving Ryan unscathed and well positioned for 2016.
Years ago I figured out that the MSM will not report a charge of this nature against a Republican unless a senior Democratic official makes it, and the charge is shocking enough to get their attention. Then it fits into their preferred model of “He said, she said.” Reid is only playing the game by the prevailing rules.
tl;dr version: Kevin Drum, don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Its about time someone on our side played the game.
What kept the R’s in line during the ’60s? None other than our inglorious basterd president. You know, the one who couldn’t pass a moral test if given 55 points to spell his name correctly … all three letters?
No mercy.
Kevin’s moral compass reminds me of PolitiFact’s perspective on facts. They both take a story and put their own credibility on the line in order to interpret but forget to give the actual facts first lienholder rights.
Here’s what I think happened: Kevin Drum, in a fit of arrogant ignorance, decided it was OMG IMPOSSIBLE that someone, even someone as wealthy as Mitt Romney, didn’t pay (fed income) taxes for 10 years. Someone downthread mentioned that he was channeling the “inconceivable!” guy from Princess Bride, and I think that’s about right.
He just rejected this assertion on its face without doing any research and without realizing that it’s not as simple as he thought. Josh Marshall basically did the same thing in his correspondence with a finance guy (e.g. “but wouldn’t he still at least pay the 15%?”).
So with that rejected assertion in hand, Kevin then just blindly assumes that Reid is lying.
But as a businessman who is very good friends with a slightly wealthy tax professional, I found the initial assertion completely plausible and also quite likely. I absolutely expect a guy heavily involved in international finance to engineer his deals to keep all profits in offshore tax havens to entirely eliminate his tax liability. This is what international finance professionals do!. Luxembourg, Caymans, Isle of Man, Aruba, etc., don’t exist for pointless dabbling, and international finance guys aren’t paid a lot of money just to count the beans. These places exist and these professionals get paid a lot for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes somewhere.
But that didn’t occur to Kevin. He didn’t connect the dots and think it through before he shot his mouth off, and now he’s too proud to admit that he was completely wrong about the nature and the reality of international business, international finance, and offshore tax shelters.
What an a–hole.
Too proud to admit he was wrong and doing his best to destroy the message. To assert that McCain only released two years of returns and not his wife’s, and Kerry didn’t release his wife’s (which is where the real money is), so what Romney’s doing is no big deal . . .
well, it makes me so mad because Drum, to defend his sorry ass, is taking down the team. We’ve got to stay on message and keep driving it home. Why give Romney cover? There’s no legitimate excuse for hiding one’s finances. But if we form another typical Democratic circular firing squad, we squash our own message. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Drum, I’d love to kick your sorry ass.
Perhaps Drum is being paid off? Probably wouldn’t take much (releatively speaking), practically impossible to prove (legally speaking) and not even criminally/civilly liable. Could even be a quid pro quo ala Morris?
Inquiring Minds at the Wall Street Journal might want to know.
Has anyone pointed out to Drum, GOP operatives/pundits, and Mitt’s team that Kerry and McCain lost? Will Ann Romney all on board with not disclosing their tax returns to “you people,” she’s leaving the same negative impressionistic tracks that Kerry and McCain’s wives did. And Hillary didn’t do herself and favors either by stalling on releasing hers.
Kevin needs to read up on Son of Boss. ( http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/opinion/canellos-kleinbard-romney-taxes/index.html )
If Romney was able to pull this sort of chicanery, I have no doubt he would do similar crap on his own taxes.
This is exactly the sort of thing that the rich don’t want any of us knowing about.