Mitt Romney told notorious media bully and propagandist for the American Far Right, Sean Hannity, that it is time for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to ‘put up or shut up.’ Reid had pointed out that an investor with Bain capital, Romney’s former company, had alleged that Romney had not paid taxes for ten years (because of tax loopholes). Reid admitted that he did not know if the allegations were true.
Romney refuses to release more than one year of tax returns.
Romney, by using the phrase ‘put up or shut up,’ was attempting to push back at Reid, and he denied that the report was true.
But, since Romney could easily disprove what the investor said by just doing what all other candidates for president in modern history have done, which is to release many years worth of tax returns, his response is the opposite of macho.
It is obviously Romney who should put up or shut up. Reid doesn’t have Romney’s tax returns, Romney does.
It is sort of like if a bully kicked sand in Romney’s face at the beach, and Romney says, whining, “you put that sand back!”
It is tone deaf and wimpy, not macho.
Someone should advise Romney that when you are obviously hiding something, you shouldn’t draw attention to your duplicity by using a phrase like ‘put up or shut up.’
Romney’s style of politics is that of his dressage horse in the London competition, an elite ballet set to classical music during which the hoi polloi are not supposed to talk.
But American politics is more like Conan the Barbarian, where, famously, the horse gets punched out.
As for the dressage horse and taxes? Romney took $70,000 off his tax bill for it.
Put up or shut up, indeed.
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