WASHINGTON — Now that Governor Mitt Romney has revealed the
details of his tax returns, it is high time that Senate Leader
Harry Reid reveal the details of his relationship with that cow
that was linked to him in a world exclusive right here in this very
column last month. Doubtless, I shall be nominated for yet another
Pulitzer, but as always I shall chastely demur, insisting, as in
the past, that I consider this column a public trust. No award or
commendation is required. Fulfilling my public duty as a citizen is
in itself reward enough.
Last month, I was only very sketchy about Mr. Reid’s
relationship with the cow. No names were included. No trysting
places could be exposed. Yet, Mr. Reid claimed living, breathing,
sources had informed him that the Massachusetts governor had failed
to file his income taxes. The Senate Leader was adamant: no taxes
had been paid by the governor over a ten-year period! Well, as with
so many other things that the Senator says, it was poppycock. So go
ahead, Senator, tell us all you know about the cow or I shall be
compelled to tell all. Even the amusing story about where she got
that cute bronze cowbell.
Interestingly, Mr. Romney and his wife’s tax returns reveal that
they donated 29.4 percent of their income to charity in 2011,
giving away $4,020,772 out of income of $13,696, 951 — not bad.
President Barack Obama and his wife donated only 21.8 percent of
their income, despite all their claims to exemplary
public-spiritedness. They donated $172,130 from earnings of
$789,674. Still they were veritable philanthropists compared to the
miserly Vice President Joe Biden. He and his wife gave 1.5 percent
of their 2011 income, their generosity amounting to $5,540 from an
income of $379,035. Once again Joe, you are pathetic.
It is becoming clearer by the day that Barack Obama and Joe
Biden are hypocrites of a classic sort. Mitt Romney is not the
scoundrel he is being portrayed as by the Democrats but rather an
exceedingly decent man and a perfect citizen. Dare I say it, a good
neighbor? Moreover, he is a vastly more accomplished man in both
the private sector and the public sector than either of these
life-long spongers at the public trough. As for Harry Reid, I am
not quite sure how to describe him. Surely he had to know that
there was at least a danger that his charges of tax evasion against
Mr. Romney were open to being exposed as false at any moment. All
that had to be done was for Mr. Romney to do what he did last week,
reveal his taxes.
My guess is that Mr. Reid has believed that it did not matter if
Mr. Romney opened his books and revealed the Senate Leader as a
liar and a fool. The Senator believed that the mainstream media —
the Democratic media, that is — would simply ignore his failed
charge of tax evasion and move on. That is precisely what the media
have done.
Yet in recent weeks the Democratic media are having to ignore an
awful lot of evidence that reveals the Obama record as a dangerous
failure both domestically and in foreign policy. Domestically he
has resided over the weakest recovery in modern times, and this
month’s action by the Federal Reserve Board reveals still more. Fed
Chairman Ben Bernanke has now announced that the economy is in need
of his further ministrations, ministrations heretofore unthinkable.
The recovery is in danger, and the lousy growth numbers and jobs
numbers speak volumes.
Now the Obama foreign policy is in tatters. It was one thing to
have the Russians and the Chinese giving Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton the back of their hands, but now the Arab world is
too. The White House’s initial story about the assault on the
Benghazi consulate was false. It was not a local rampage but a
well-coordinated military attack. Soon we shall recognize that
three days before the attack took place the American government was
warned. Obama did nothing. American installations in Libya should
have been prepared for the worst on September 11, as should
American installations all around the world. Instead embassies in
Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen were also attacked.
It is the end of President Obama’s Cairo Doctrine. Delivered in
Cairo in 2009, President Obama imagined the speech — the most
breath-taking mea culpa delivered by an American president ever —
would represent a new dawn of friendship and cooperation between
the United States and the Arab world. It failed. Now three years
later the Arab world is in ferment against the United
States. The only good that can come of this foreign policy disaster
is that it came at an opportune time, election time. It is one more
reason that Barack Obama should be retired.
—
