Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been living up to his nickname “Dirty Harry” lately as a political hit man for the Obama campaign. Dirty Harry fantastically charged, based on a rumor he claimed he heard from someone associated with Mitt Romney’s old company Bain Capital, that Romney didn’t pay income taxes for 10 years. He followed up this brazen smear with, “Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” and refused to back up his statement with any facts.
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To top off this flabbergasting and transparently false attack, Dirty Harry went straight into the gutter by dragging Mitt Romney’s late father Governor George Romney into the mix adding, “His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son.” So despicable and unconscionable was this attack that even The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, typically a shill for the Left, hit Dirty Harry for “playing the dead card” in a segment called, “You, Harry Reid, Are Really, Really Terrible.”
Normally, such an embarrassingly over-the-top charge would be quietly walked back and clarified away, but instead Dirty Harry doubled down on his empty allegations. Somehow, Reid even had the gall to turn it around on Romney and took to the Senate floor to say, “Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.” To use the Senate floor as a platform to wage false attacks against Mitt Romney for the Obama campaign is a disgrace to the office that he holds.
Astoundingly, Reid dug in even further when pressed to substantiate his accusations by saying, “I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.” In Dirty Harry’s world, you are guilty until proven innocent, no matter how reckless or outlandish the charge.
What does President Obama think about Dirty Harry’s dirty tricks? A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, “Does the president think that this allegation coming from Harry Reid, without any evidence, made on the Senate floor, is that below the belt? Does that cross the line?” Instead of disavowing Dirty Harry, Carney simply referred the media back to him and hit on the campaign message calling for Romney to release more tax records. Clearly this is a campaign directive that comes right from the top. Another reporter made an excellent point when he asked, “Why hasn’t [Obama] picked up the phone to ask Harry Reid to stop making a charge like that?” As the leader of the party, Obama could certainly have told Dirty Harry that his indefensible charges were inappropriate and antithetical to the positive campaign he claims he wants to run.
The truth is that President Obama likes having an attack dog to get in the mud for him. Dirty Harry is advancing the same issues the Obama campaign is trying to hit Romney on. They are trying to smoke out more Romney tax returns so they can dig through them, twist the results, and ratchet up the class warfare rhetoric. The campaign’s attacks on Romney’s wealth haven’t worked yet and they are desperate for fresh material to use in attack ads this fall because President Obama can’t run on his record. His presidency has produced 42 straight months of 8 to 10 percent unemployment, $5 trillion added to our $16 trillion national debt, a downgrade of our AAA credit, and general economic malaise. All the Obama campaign can do is viciously attack Romney and Dirty Harry, not up for reelection until 2016 yet hoping to retain his job as majority leader, is up to the task of playing dirty tricks.
