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RUSH: Dingy Harry continues to smear Mitt Romney. Ann Coulter has a good column today. She points out, if I could summarize real quick, she says the reason that they are making a beeline for Romney’s tax records is because he’s too straitlaced. He doesn’t have a divorce that they can go look at. And she recounts the history of every Obama campaign, every opponent had either divorce or custody records unsealed shortly before the election, which resulted in high embarrassment or even resignation of the opposition candidate.

Her point is that Obama has never won an election straight up, other than the 2008 presidential election. The playbook for the Obama campaign is to find out whatever dirt there is on your opponent and get it out there, have the help of the media, and have it be so embarrassing, whether it’s true or not, have it be so embarrassing that it just destroys the candidacy or, in best instances, it forces the opponent to withdraw, which is what happened with a guy named Jack Ryan. Well, in Romney’s case, there isn’t any of that. There isn’t a divorce, so there’s not a divorce file. There isn’t any concentrated pile of what Obama and his team might be able to say was perversion or immorality. So they want these tax records. They want these tax records so they can lie about that. And they’re doing everything they can to get them, including spreading the lie — and it’s a lie, because they can’t prove the charge, but they’re doing a Tom Foley on this.

They are saying Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years. They’ve got imaginary friends calling Harry Reid, just like imaginary friends used to call Little Dick Gephardt, imaginary friends calling Harry Reid from Bain Capital saying, “Hey, Harry, Mitt didn’t pay taxes for ten years.” Dingy Harry didn’t know who these guys are. He didn’t have proof. Stephanie Cutter doesn’t have proof, but they’re out there claiming that Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years. And what they’re trying to do is pressure Romney into releasing these tax records. They don’t care what’s in them. It doesn’t matter. Once they get ten years of tax records or five years, I mean, in five years of tax records, with a tax return that would probably be fairly complicated compared to your average 1040 filer, they’ll be able to point to something in there that will make the uninformed class think, “Well, that’s outrageous! How in the world did he pull that off? Oh, this guy is a tax cheat, Myrtle. How in the world can we vote for a guy like that?”

Something like that is their objective. It doesn’t have to be true. All it has to do is be complicated. All it has to do is be unusual. All it has to have is something in there that is not quite common with your average 1040 filer. Now, Romney knows that that’s what they’re doing, and that’s why he’s saying he’s not gonna do it. And he better hold to that, he’d better hold to it because this pressure is gonna mount. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. This is Dingy Harry. This is a grotesque, as I said yesterday, little man, a vile, little man. He went to the floor of the Senate today during the majority leader’s remarks, and this is a portion of what he said.

REID: If a person coming before this body wanted to be a cabinet officer, he couldn’t be if he’d did the same refusal Mitt Romney does about tax returns. So the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.

RUSH: There’s no evidence that he hasn’t paid any taxes. This is no different than in 1988. I’ve mentioned this to you before. In 1988, some guy at Columbia, Gary Sick, wrote a book. In the book was the allegation that George H. W. Bush had gone to Paris under cover of darkness, met with the Iranians, and struck a deal with them to make sure the hostages, the American hostages, were not released before the election. Now, Tom Foley said there is no evidence, but the seriousness of the charge requires that we investigate this. This is all the Democrats are doing now. Same page out of the playbook. “So the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. Let him prove that he has.”


So what we have here, we have Harry Reid saying he hadn’t paid taxes in ten years.

“Yeah, where’s your evidence?”

“Well, I don’t have the evidence. He’s gotta prove it.”

“Well, who’s telling you he hasn’t paid taxes?”

“Well, a couple people that used to work at Bain.”

“Well, how do they know?”


“Well, I don’t know. I’m just telling you, he hadn’t paid taxes in ten years. It’s up to him to prove it. Let him prove that he paid his taxes, because he hasn’t.”

All this is is a tightening of the ratchet trying to get Romney to release the records, ’cause all they want is to be able to employ the usual David Axelrod/Barack Obama plan of going through the documents, whatever they are, making up a bunch of stuff about ’em and trying to get Romney out of the race. Here’s Eric Fehrnstrom. He is a Romney adviser. This morning on Fox News, America Newsroom, Bill Hemmer interviewed him. He said, “This is Harry Reid (played the sound bite). There’s obviously something behind his comments to drill this out every day, grab headlines. What’s behind this, Eric?”

FEHRNSTROM: This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s. And it was another son from Massachusetts then, Joseph Welch, who finally asked the question that should be asked of Harry Reid, which is, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? Is there nothing that you won’t do in the name of dirty politics?” And I think it’s just shameful, and, of course, it’s directly contrary to the new kind of politics that Barack Obama promised the country four years ago.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right on, right on. But I don’t know that that’s gonna be too effective. He said they were gonna unify the country. Does he have no shame? We’re talking about a despicable human being here. Does Harry Reid have any shame? I think he drew the short straw on this. They probably assigned this to somebody, and Harry got the short straw. They sat around, “Somebody’s gonna take this public. Romney hasn’t paid his taxes. Harry, it’s your turn.” “Aw, I don’t — I don’t –” “Harry, it’s your turn, you gotta do it. Take one for the team.” And it’s entirely possible that Harry didn’t have to have this assigned, that he was just willing to do it on his own. It’s very typical. But that’s what this is about.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hey, quick question here, folks. Why aren’t these Bain whistleblowers on CNN telling the tale of Romney not paying any taxes? At least when the Democrats went after Herman Cain, they at least dragged some women up there to claim that he had done some stuff. If these whistleblowers are calling Harry Reid, why aren’t they on television? Why haven’t they come forth? Let us see who they are and show us how it is they know that Romney hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. You know, like Little Dick Gephardt, Dingy Harry has a habit of making up people to suit his needs. During the amnesty debate, illegal immigration, amnesty debate 2007, Harry Reid told everybody, you might remember this, he told everybody about a phone call that he got from one of his constituents who wanted amnesty to be passed.

Dingy Harry said that the guy’s name was Tommy. And a lot of people said, “Well, bring Tommy forward. Who is this Tommy? You said Tommy called you and wants amnesty passed. Let’s hear from Tommy.” And Tommy never came forward because Tommy never existed outside of Harry Reid’s fevered imagination, any more than this number of people exist. This is a common tactic. Dingy Harry knows — in fact, he said, “I don’t think the burden to prove this is on me. The burden should be on Romney. He’s the one I’ve alleged hasn’t paid any taxes. Why didn’t he release his tax returns?”

Now, what Dingy Harry knows is the media’s gonna pick it right up, and they may give it some time, but they’ll be in on this. It won’t be long before we’ll see a story that Romney has remained suspiciously silent on the allegation. Harry Reid has charged that Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years, and surprisingly, Romney hasn’t refuted the charge. You watch, it’ll happen. It’s a technique. We parodied this back during the Lewinsky scandal with Clinton. You had Carville and Stephanopoulos and the whole war room crowd out accusing Ken Starr of some of the most vile stuff in the world. And then Ken Starr would go on television and they would ask him about these accusations. So we did a parody of it.

(playing of parody)


RUSH: It’s in their playbook. It’s what they do. Harry Reid is starting to sound like an angry old white man. He’s sounding deranged. You know, imaginary friends don’t make good TV. You can’t show them. And, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, have you ever heard that Harry Reid’s the butt boy of some of the Mafia dons that he works in Las Vegas? Have you heard about some of the shady real estate deals that Harry Reid did? The LA Times had the story, way back in the nineties. Remember the phony soldier episode with Harry Reid, carrying forth a lie that I was denigrating genuine military heros. We did a parody of this with the letter.

I’ll tell you what ought to be happening here. IRS agents should be interrogating Harry Reid to determine who it is that supposedly leaked confidential tax information about a private citizen to him. And Harry Reid, having disclosed publicly what he was told, should be investigated as well for passing such information on to the public. This is a felony, what Harry Reid is doing. So if anybody needs to be investigated here, it’s Harry Reid. IRS agents ought to be talking to him and trying to figure out who leaked. You know, who is this guy from Bain that’s calling Harry Reid? Who are these people? And then he publicly disclosed what he was told, and he doesn’t know if it’s true. He’s demanding that Romney prove it, so Harry Reid’s admitting he doesn’t know if it’s true.

If anybody should be investigated by government agents, it’s Harry Reid. Harry Reid’s a public official. In fact, this despicable little man has great power over the IRS and tax laws. And he appears to be using his position, this powerful position, to disclose confidential tax information. Now, the information need not be accurate, but the attempt to do such a thing would seem to be problematic enough. If he actually has information about a private citizen’s tax returns and is peddling it in public, he needs to be questioned by the IRS and the FBI, because what he’s doing is a felony. This is not allowable under law. And just because it’s a political campaign does not excuse it, does not give him the opportunity to do this outside the law.

Romney hadn’t violated the law. Nobody has a serious allegation of this. And all they want, they are trying to pressure Romney — I’ll tell you what they’re really trying to do. They’re trying to get to the Republican establishment and the cowardly consultants to go to Romney, and say, “Mitt, look, this is piling up. I know there’s nothing there, but you’ve gotta release these records. You’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to turn this off.” That’s how they think. That’s how they operate. He probably has some people telling him that now. Just like three weeks ago, all of the conservative intellectuals and intelligentsia started getting in line. He should release the tax records, just because the Democrats want them. Just because the Obama campaign wants them, yep, just release those records and the story goes away. That’s what they all told us, the smart ones in the room.


So I guarantee you he’s got some people advising him. “Mitt, you gotta shut this down. Mitt, there’s nothing there. Let ’em have ’em.” And that’s precisely the point. There’s nothing there. That’s not gonna stop ’em. All that’s gonna do is give more life to this thing in ways that it will never have life if they don’t release them. There is no upside to releasing those tax returns, not now, not with what’s going on. What needs to happen is the focus needs to shift to Harry Reid and his questionable legal behavior here. If anybody deserves to be investigated, it is Harry Reid for what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. Here is the parody that we did with Harry Reid. This is our white comedian Paul Shanklin with the vocal portrayal.

(playing of parody)

RUSH: What was the letter, for those of you that weren’t here. Harry Reid sent a letter to the then CEO of Clear Channel Communications demanding that I be made to apologize for insulting the heroes of the United States of America who wear the military uniform, over a trumped-up mischaracterization of what I had said by Media Matters regarding a genuine phony soldier. And what we did, we took that letter and we put it on eBay up for auction as a great illustration of the power of government. I had the United States government lined up against me, led by Harry Reid. Certainly accurate to say, the Senate of the United States. And he had every Democrat sign this letter. Not one Republican signed it.

I had the entire United States Senate trying to get me off the air, lined up against me. I remember saying at the time, “Gosh, I wish my father were alive. He would not believe this,” and he’d be livid. So we put that letter up for auction on eBay, and I said I’ll match whatever we get, because this is a clear illustration of where the country’s headed, the overreach of federal government, denial of First Amendment, it’s all wrapped up in that. We ended up raising $4.2 million for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, who we sponsor at TwoIfByTea.com, greatest tea in the country, by the way. It was $2.1, I matched it, $4.2 million total. And when it was all over, Harry Reid went back to the floor of the Senate and tried to take credit for it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, Mitt Romney is no tax cheat. But even if he was, so what? The Treasury secretary of the United States is an admitted tax cheat, and the Democrats didn’t give a damn about that. Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats in the Senate voted to confirm Little Timmy Geithner, the tax cheat. Joe Biden is a plagiarist. Anybody care about that? Barack Obama fudged laws in a shady deal to buy his house with the help of a conflicted felon. His good pal Bill Ayers bombed the Pentagon. Romney is none of this. Not even close to it. We have an admitted tax cheat that is the Treasury secretary of the United States, Timothy Geithner. Democrats don’t care about it.

AP story, John Solomon, October 11, 2006: “Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years.” So the Senate majority leader profits $1.1 million on a Las Vegas land sale, even though he hadn’t owned it for three years. “In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews. The Nevada Democrat’s deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial,” in the summer of 2006. Now, can you do that? Can you collect $1.1 million in profit on land you haven’t owned in three years? Yes, you can, if you do this.

(playing of parody)

RUSH: There you have it, Dingy Harry, custom land deals. You can’t get the deals he gets and stay out of jail like he does. And even Little Dick Gephardt, his imaginary friend called him up and said, “You know what, I’m rich, Dick, but I’m not paying enough in taxes.” Well, we learned a lot about Little Dick’s imaginary friends.

(playing of parody)

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