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Apparently the Romney campaign thinks they can’t responsibly select the right person who might become the next Vice President of the United States without first getting a lot of information about them, including multiple years of their tax returns. According to Rep. Paul Ryan in a interview with CBS News, the Romney campaign made him provide them with significantly more than two years of tax returns before they would select him. From CBS News:
Bob Schieffer: How many years of tax returns did you turn over to the campaign?
Paul Ryan: Well, it was a very exhaustive vetting process. It’s a confidential vetting process, so there were several years. But I’m going to release the same amount of years that Governor Romney has. But I got to tell you, Bob–
Bob Schieffer: And how many was that?
Paul Ryan: He’s– two. He’s– I’m going to be releasing two, which is what he’s releasing. What I hear from people around this country, they’re not asking where the tax returns. They’re asking where the jobs are. Where’s the economic growth? Those are the issues that matter. I think these are more or less distractions to try and take us off the fact that the president has given us failed policies that aren’t working, that are putting us deeper into debt, that are costing us jobs. And so, we’re going to focus on what it takes to turn this country around and get people back to work.
(emphasis mine)
Just to make it perfectly clear what happened, Romney wouldn’t select someone to possibly be the next Vice President of the United States without first seeing multiple years of their tax returns. Yet Romney thinks it is absurd for the media and regular Americans to ask to see multiple years of tax returns before making the radically more important decision of selecting who might be the next President of the United States. Romney feels he needed more than two years of tax returns to select a Vice President, but he doesn’t think you deserve the same level of disclosure before selecting a President.
It is almost like the Romney campaign is an elaborate performance art piece designed to elevate hypocrisy and kill irony.
15 Comments
Wow. Another story on the horse race. This, along with the persistent presence of TBogg’s tribal vitriol on the front page at FDL, has made it unnecessary for me to visit MSNBC, CNN or FOX. Thanks, I guesss.
ps: there’s not one legacy party candidate for a major office that you can’t catch being hypocritical during election season. Not news, really. I can’t at all understand the conceit that I might care that white Romney is less forthcoming with personal financial data than black Romney more than I care that they both plan to continue with the U.S. imperial project, gutting the social safety net and expanding the powers of the executive. Oh, and then there’s corporatism…wait, what were talking about again?
Well, one of them is going to be President. There is a mile of difference between the two of them (particularly if you are a woman) but you go ahead and vote for Jill Stein or some other non”legacy” party candidate, because that is so effective.
o had four years to Man Up, what makes you think it was a con and if reelected he’ll Man Up now ?
Trying to analyze the Romney campaign is like to trying to assemble an Ikea computer desk without the instructions.
How exactly is Romney gonna akser the question of his vetting process versus OUR vetting process when it come up? And it will.
Now, allow me get into my Karnak the Magnificent costume:
“The answer is, “Quayle, Palin, and Paul Ryan.”
The question, “Who are dumb, dumber, and despicable selfish bastard?”
Hmmm …
It’s almost like the Romney Campaign is an elaborate Kabuki performance to elevate Barack Obama’s “centrism” as “responsible and reasonable” and to effectively kill any honest debate or discussion about the actual state of the economy …
Nuance is dead, already, Jon, so why should irony be permitted onstage?
Ah, well …
DW
Is this an assumption? I don’t see a number in the quotes.
Ryan probably avoided giving the exact number of years, but I think “significantly more than two years” makes the point.
Ah, the irony.
Of course, Bush Jr got himself elected on the bullshit mantra of being a Uniter, not a Divider. There’s no reason why Romney can’t get himself elected despite looking like a CEO who regularly flips the bird at the American people.
Just reread what Jon wrote. Jon paraphrased Ryan’s “several years” in the confidential vetting process as “significantly more than two years.”
What’s clear from what Ryan said is that the Romney campaign required several years to be turned over to them, but will only want him to release a couple to the public. Jon’s paraphrase is justified.
and of course you can go ahead and vote for the wolf in sheep clothing
read the link
oh mighty “our guy is better then their guy”
your quaterback playing for the other team does FAR more damage then giving the other team the ball
Yes, why quibble whether “several” equates to “significantly more than two”.
I had no idea there were so many.
Yep, I can see you’re a keen student of
democracybacking the right horse.Who gives a shit, anyway? Guess what? All the candidates are rich! ZOMG!!1!!11! And they all use every loophole they can to avoid paying taxes. FFS, which one is going to have a DOJ that more aggressively goes after medical marijuana/social safety net/government & armed services whistleblowers? What, both will be the same? Surprise, surprise!
More despicable or selfish than Lieberman? Exactly.
I’m not going to defend drone strikes, but Obama’s hundreds of drone strikes have resulted in far fewer civilian deaths than did Bush’s two wars (if comparisons are necessary).
Voting for third-party candidates in Nov.
Agree.
But as you point out, Bush had two wars, Obamas drone strikes affected SEVERAL different countries which equates to “significantly more than two” on this thread.