Griper Blade: The Robotic Candidate Blows a Gasket

Yesterday, the rightwing National Review made what was probably (from their perspective, at least) a bad call. They bought the Romney line that the only reason Team Obama wants more tax returns released is so they can find stuff to make a big deal over. "The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more," Romney has explained. "More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try make a mountain out of and to distort and to be dishonest about."

"Let them go fish," said the editorial board, ignoring the very obvious.

And the very obvious is that the argument's basically Romney admitting that there's stuff in there to make a big deal over. It's not like Mitt's completely in the dark over what's in his tax returns; when Romney says the Obama campaign just wants dirt, he's basically admitting that he's not releasing his tax returns because there's dirt in there.

Which is why Team Romney is desperate to change the subject -- and why they're failing to do just that. The very obvious is just as very obvious to the press as it is to me. Romney's hiding something and they want to know what it is. In fact, they want to know so very badly that they're finally giving the "veepstakes" the attention it deserves -- i.e., not a whole lot. And this while Romney's chumming the waters with running mate rumors. When that shiny bauble can't get the media's attention, your messaging apparatus is spiraling wildly out of control...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]