Sunday, August 5, 2012

Make My Sunday: Dirty Harry and Dirty Liar Harry Reid

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RNC Chairman, Reince Priebus: And as far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen, I know you might want to go down that road, I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself. Complains about people with money but lives in the Ritz Carlton here down the street. So if that’s on the agenda, I’m not going to respond to that. This is just a made-up issue. And the fact that we’re going to spend any time talking about it is ridiculous.
George Stephanopolous: Mr. Chairman, you say you're not going to respond, but you just called him a 'dirty liar.' You stand by that, you think Harry Reid is a dirty liar?”
Priebus: I just said it.
ABC News This Week with George Stephanopolous










Senator Lindsey Graham: I think he's lying about his statement about knowing something about Romney's . . .
Candy Crowly of CNN: That's pretty stiff. You think the leader of the Senate is lying?
Lindsey Graham: I really do - I think he's created an issue here, I think he's making things up. And at a time when the country is just about to fall apart.
. . . I just can't believe that the Senate Majority Leader would take the floor twice, make accusations that are absolutely unfounded in my view, and quite frankly making things up.




We can put all of this to rest tomorrow. Mitt Romney can go to Kinko’s, he can photocopy his tax returns, they’re several hundred pages. He can hand them out to people like CNN, he can hand them out to reporters all over the country, and you know what? We wouldn’t talk about this tomorrow.
~ Robert Gibbs on CNN, quoted by Politico

Republicans hit back creatively. On Twitter, conservatives started saying that they had heard Reid is a pederast (or–same thing–a child molester). They noted that Reid had not denied the report, even though it is “out there” and demands a response. Actually, the rumor that Reid is a pederast has somewhat more credibility than Reid’s rumor that Romney doesn’t pay taxes. We know the latter claim is false, since federal tax law and the IRS wouldn’t permit it. On the other hand, we have absolutely no idea whether Reid is a pederast. It’s possible.
~ Powerline Blog

Reid doesn't have anything better to do. He hasn't produced a budget for 3 years, nor has he acted on a variety of bills that might get the stalled economy off the schnide.
So perhaps the reason Reid has turned into a Democratic attack dog is because he's bored. I imagine if Romney is elected president, Reid will be as busy as he ever has been.
~ American Thinker

I think at this point of time it's going to dog [Romney] all the way and he needs to get it behind him. I think he needs to release more taxes. Absolutely.
~ Republican Strategist, Ed Rollins on Fox News

The Sunday news shows featured a rare spectacle that at once revealed the decline of civility in Washington and the depth of GOP outrage over Harry Reid’s unproven claim that Mitt Romney didn’t pay income taxes for an entire decade: two of the nation’s top GOP officials flat out called the Senate majority leader a liar.
That’s no ordinary criticism in official Washington.
. . . the actual term ‘liar’ crosses a line that’s seldom breached, signaling a widespread GOP belief that, even by the diminished standards of contemporary political debate, Reid has violated a code.
~ Politico

I don’t know who Harry Reid’s source is, but I do know that Mitt Romney could clear this up in 10 seconds by releasing the 23 years of tax returns that he gave to John McCain when he was being vetted for vice president. Or even 12 years of tax returns that his own father said were what was appropriate. Because one year of tax returns, like he’s released, could just be for show. And let’s not forget that a week ago, Mitt Romney said in response to a reporter’s question when asked if he had ever paid a rate below 13.9 percent, that he would check and get back to us. And you know, I’m glad I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for Mitt Romney to get back to us on answering that question, because he still hasn’t responded whether he’s paid a lower tax rate.
~ Democratic National Committee Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on This Wek

It's one of the most outrageous charges that I've ever seen actually made on the Senate Floor. . . . When Harry Reid takes to the floor of the Senate and makes this outrageous charge that has absolutely no evidence. . . I mean Mitt Romney paid $3 million in the one tax return we've seen. He's paid taxes, so it's a completely false charge.
But Reid loves this. The Democrats love this. Because no matter how he digs in, no matter how much he gets attacked, you know - here or by John Stewart - or anywhere else, it gets the story out there again and again.
And I tell you - Mitt Romney played right into this by telling Harry Reid to 'put up or shut up,' so it becomes this back-and-forth. Instead, he should have laughed it off, he should have made a joke about Harry Reid's imaginary friend, and moved on . . .
Jonathan Karl, ABC senior White House reporter, on This Week

Harry Reid’s source, if we are to assume he actually has one, is identified by Harry Reid as an investor in Bain. That’s as though I own some Microsoft stock, which I do, and I said, well, as an investor in Microsoft, I know have opinions on Bill Gates’ tax returns. Look, in 1950, Joe McCarthy went to West Virginia, didn’t know what to tell to the Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, so he said I have in my hand a list of 205, we think that are — 205 communists in the State Department. Didn’t have a list. Harry Reid doesn’t have any evidence either. This is McCarthyism from the desert (ph).
~ Republican pundit, George Will on This Week

. . . isn't this kind of like Joe McCarthy back in the era when he said, "I have here in my hand the names of 400 people in the state department who are communist?" It turned out he didn't and he was saying the way to prove that they're not is for them to come forward here. I mean, asking somebody to come forward to, to just because there's been an unsubstantiated charge, that's a little thin to me.
~ Bob Schieffer on CBS Face the Nation

He absolutely should not release any more tax returns. He has released two years. Bill Clinton wouldn’t release his medical records. You know, people kind of wondered about that. We know after the JFK presidency, you could have an issue with a drug addict president, but he just dug in his heels. We have two years on Romney. You know perfectly well, the media, this is Obama’s modus operandi, and unfortunately Romney isn’t divorced. Hopefully, his vice presidential candidate won’t be divorced. It’s always dirty politics. You remember when Romney was — or Obama was running against McCain and Sarah Palin. What did we get? False rumors of a McCain affair. We had investigations into the Palin marriage, claims they were getting divorced. They have nothing on this Mormon, and they want his tax records. If they releases 10 years, they’ll demand 20 years.
~ Ann Coulter on This Week











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