Please, not another smoking gun

Many TROUsers are old enough to understand the meaning of the phrase, "The cover-up is as bad, or worse, than the crime."

I don't know when the phrase was coined, but many TROUsers identify it with the August, 1974, resignation of President Nixon, who was caught in a cover-up of the historic Watergate break-in in June, 1972.

Nixon denied any knowledge of the break-in for more than two years, until taped evidence was found that he had discussed the break-in with aides less than a week after the event. That tape became known as "the smoking gun."

I guess that's why "smoking gun" comes back into popular use when people refer to Mitt Romney's unreleased tax returns, and what could be in them. It doesn't even have to be illegal, as the Nixon smoking gun certainly was. This time, it is more about this confounding secrecy. It is enough just to have the suspicion that Romney might have some explaining to do, about what is in those returns, and the explaining could cost him votes (particularly among TROUsers, I would imagine), and thus be the smoking gun.

The very conservative Manchester UnionLeader, whose editors think Romney is too wishy-washy to be a legitimate GOP presidential candidate, said yesterday that he should release the tax returns immediately: "If Romney intends to win, he is going to have to make the tax forms public."

That is a 16-word salute to the fear of the power of the smoking gun. If it's not there, fine. If it is there, it will be found. If it is found after the convention but before the election, it's all over for the GOP. If Romney wins the election, and THEN the smoking gun is found, what then? As a TROUser, I don't want to find out. One smoking gun and the hole it shot in that president's legitimacy is enough for one American lifetime.



Last time, I mentioned that John McCain knows what is in those tax forms. So do a lot of people who worked for McCain in 2008 and are still stricken, like Steve Schmidt, that McCain passed over somebody like Romney for somebody like Sarah Palin. Steve Schmidt knows about Romney's tax forms. Ask him.