How Ironic is This?

Donald Trump is proud of himself for finally coaxing Barack Obama into releasing his long form birth certificate. No one else cares. Donald Trump is a clown with a bad toupee. But he did insert himself as the ringleader of a group of lunatics who were able to turn a speck of dirt into a mountain, thus convincing the president - who has much better things to do - that it was worth it to reach out to Hawaii and get the state to release his birth certificate.

No president has ever felt compelled to release his birth certificate before, but presidential candidates do traditionally release their tax returns. Mitt Romney's father released 12 years worth of tax returns. Mitt Romney so far has only released two years worth of returns.

The "scandal" surrounding this recently has been the assertion by Senator Harry Reid that Romney hasn't paid taxes in a decade. It is a bold and dangerous claim, and one that Reid has no right making without evidence, evidence which so far, he is either unwilling or unable to produce. In fact, Reid's claim is based on nothing more than information from someone he calls a credible source.

It is possible that Reid is simply making this up, and if so, he is complicit in the ugly hyper partisan politics that plague our nation. It is also possible that he was told this by someone he believes to be credible, but he is still spreading hearsay with no evidence to back it up. Depending on the scenario, Reid's claim is tenuous at best, a lie at worst.

But Romney has done nothing to disprove it, and in fact, his actions lend belief to Reid's tale. Sure, Romney does not have to release his tax returns just as Obama didn't have to show his birth certificate. The two differences here are that no presidential candidates or sitting presidents have been compelled to show their birth certificates in the past whereas candidates and presidents routinely make their tax return public, and that even prominent Republicans are calling on Romney to put the matter to rest by releasing his tax returns.

So even though I lament the state of American politics in which a handful of crazies can compel the President into showing his birth certificate, and a Senator can accuse a presidential candidate of not paying taxes, I am amused by the situation in which Romney finds himself. Hypocritical? Perhaps. But this mess is one of Republican making after all. The irony is thick. For years they howled about Obama being Kenyan or something outrageous like that, knowing all along it was nothing but a lie believed by a small but vocal group of ignorant people. Now their candidate is called into question about something that is currently speculative, but now even Republicans are beginning to doubt that Romney is clean. And just as Obama's initial refusal to show his birth certificate fueled the fire of the fringe idiots who thought he was foreign, so is Romney's refusal to release previous tax returns making people like me believe he does have something to hide.

Everyone knew Obama was born in America. The birthed issue welled up from the racial springs of a fringe group of radicals and was embraced by more mainstream people for political benefit. Whether or not Romney is hiding something in his tax returns is much less obvious, and although I don't support Reid's unfounded accusations, I have reason enough to distrust Romney already, and his refusal to be forthcoming about his taxes makes me trust him even less if that's possible.