More Harry Vs. Swiss Mitt

One of the pundits who has a good take on the Harry Reid / Swiss Mitt Romney back-and-forth over Swiss Mitt's tax return stonewalling is the Kaplan Daily's Eugene Robinson. We thought you might like to get a sample of Robinson's article:

"What strikes you as more improbable: That Harry Reid has a mysterious source with intimate knowledge of Romney’s finances? Or that a man who made a quarter of a billion dollars from his skill at reading balance sheets has no clue of how much he’s been paying in taxes?

"Neither, on its face, sounds terribly likely. But Reid isn’t running for president — and he doesn’t even have to run for reelection until 2016, assuming he chooses to do so. Romney could dramatically boost his credibility by opening his personal books to the normal degree of public scrutiny. The fact that he won’t — even when continued secrecy clearly hurts the campaign, if only by diverting attention from other issues Romney would rather be talking about — clearly means there’s something embarrassing, inappropriate or just plain ugly in there.

"You don’t need a secret source to tell you that. Common sense will do." (our emphasis)

You can take all the lame, "fair and balanced," both-sides-do-it fact checkers (lookin' at you, Glenn Kessler) and dithering "liberal" hand-wringers like the always-reliable Richard Cohen, and you still can't alter the impression that Swiss Mitt must be hiding something pretty bad, or else he would have laid his returns out for all to see by now.

BONUS: As always, the sublime Charles P. Pierce chimes in smartly (you have to read his piece to get the Vince Foster reference):

"I have no idea why Reid decided to go all-in on this point. Maybe he's just fed up with the Republicans and what they've done to the Senate that he loves. Maybe it's some sort of intramural Mormon brawl that the rest of us just don't understand. I am open to any suggestion based on the concept of pure old-dude cussedness. I don't have any idea whether Willard Romney paid no taxes, or some taxes, or paid an annual tribute to Anubis, Egyptian God Of The Dead, over the years in question. Neither, I would point out, do Glenn Kessler, or his tax experts, or the PolitiFact elves, or Reince Priebus. This is because Willard Romney, unlike any presidential candidate of my experience, declines to share those details with The Help as he seeks to be appointed CEO of America. But neither am I morally outraged that Reid is playing the kind of politics he is playing with this. That is because, when I consider what he's doing, I do not think of Joe McCarthy. I think of Vince Foster, and I am conspicuously unmoved."