A Taxing and De-"Grading" Issue

It would seem that a coalition of rabid Democrats, partisan leftists, Euro-style socialists, uber-progressives, and assorted American Marxists have all devised a brilliant plan to distract the American people’s attention and thus help their inept would-be champion, Barack Obama,  gain re-election.  You see, Obama was swept into office on the magnificent-sounding themes of “hope and change”.  What we have since discovered over the course of these last 3 ½ years though is that the magnificence promised in restoring the economy, strengthening friendships throughout the world, and even healing the earth are nothing more than empty rhetoric.  In other words, despite assurances to the contrary that if only we would pass the gargantuan stimulus package, we would see unemployment not rise above 8%. It has not been below 8% since. Obama’s policies would see jobs return, the housing market rebound, and the world overall transformed to a safer place.  Fast forward to the end of Obama’s first (and hopefully only) term and by any objective standard, President Obama’s stewardship has proven to be an utter failure.  So what is one to do when one cannot run on the ruin and destruction of one’s own record?  Well, unleash your surrogates to launch a scorched earth campaign against your opponent, of course.  If you look horrible on paper, make the other guy look even worse… even if you have to lie and fabricate non-existent issues to do so.  It is a Chicago thing, you see.

Enter the progressive coalition and their despicable and mendacious poster-boy Harry Reid.  They must distract the American people from noticing the complete failure of Obama’s executive administration if he is to stand a chance at re-election.  How best to do that is to manufacture a seemingly slanderous scandal regarding Mitt Romney and his income taxes.  The left wants to know why Romney won’t release more than two years of his past income taxes if he has nothing to hide; never mind the fact that this is all that is legally required when running for office.   In the attempt to create even the appearance of possible malfeasance on Romney’s behalf, they bemoan the fact that Romney refuses to even acknowledge their sincere requests.  Now there are plenty of legitimate issues to criticize Romney on without having to create one as foolish as this.  But, the left is desperate it would seem.

Unfortunately, despite the mendacity of the plan by the left, it is probably smart politics nonetheless.  Why even the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid came out and said that some “un-named source” that worked with Romney in the past had told Prince Harry that the reason Romney won’t release the whole last decade of his tax records is because he didn’t pay taxes for most of those years.  Of course there is no proof whatsoever… not even the name of the source to verify the veracity of it.  But that didn’t stop Harry Reid, who even had the gumption to take these unsubstantiated, un-sourced, and exceptionally-unlikely and untrue allegations and pontificate for all of the world and MSNBC to report while he was on the Senate floor.  (Side note: Harry Reid refuses to release the last decade of his taxes too, but when asked about the glaring hypocrisy, he stated that he wasn’t running for president.)

So what is poor Mitt to do? 

I think I have a solution for him. 

You see, President Obama has sealed all of his college records and transcripts so that they would not be made public.  A reasonable explanation for this has never been given by Obama.  If Obama’s grades were good and reflected his supposed brilliance, why would he not want to release them for all of America and the world to see?  If his grades were bad, why would he not release those anyway?  After all, he is President of the United States of America now and the grades he had from nearly thirty years ago are pretty much irrelevant to his job today.  Besides, Al Gore, John Kerry, and George W. Bush all were “C” students, so if he had mediocre or poor grades, he wouldn’t be without company.  But, Obama doesn’t put this issue to rest.  One has to wonder why?  What does he have to lose by disclosing those records to the public?  What is President Obama trying to hide?

I read an interesting hypothesis on this the other day that was put forth by the former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, Wayne Root. 

First, Mr. Root just happened to go to Columbia University and was a supposed class mate of Barack Obama (or Barry Soetoro as he was then-known).  They both were from the class of 1983.  The only problem is that Mr. Root never met Obama in all of his years there.  In fact, he never even heard of him.  Further, the Wall Street Journal reported that an investigation was done that included the calling of 400 Columbia classmates at random in 2008 and did not find one of them that had ever met Barack Obama.   Mr. Root was even a Pre-law and Political Science major, just like Obama, and yet had never heard of him.  So Mr. Root’s theory is this:

A) He (Obama) rarely ever attended class.

B) His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C) He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D) He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

 

Now I don’t necessarily buy this hypothesis, but it certainly does offer a plausible explanation for Obama’s reticence in exposing his college records.  Further, if Harry Reid can go and make completely unsubstantiated charges out of thin air with no proof whatsoever, then why can’t a classmate with the same major as Obama who never met the guy in all of his years at Columbia raise legitimate questions and go on a similar fishing expedition?

So back to Romney and the solution to his problem with the leftist coalition.  Romney needs to call Obama and the left’s bluff.  Romney should immediately call a full press conference and issue a statement to the nation and to Obama.  He should say that he will disclose the rest of his tax records for the preceding decade if Obama will release all of his college records.  After all, what could be so horrible in Obama’s records that he is so afraid to show them to the American people?  And if indeed there is something that bad, then perhaps it would be a good idea for America to know about it.  I think it is safe to say that not another word from Obama and the leftist coalition will be uttered regarding Romney’s tax records.  And in the unlikely case that they continue to harp on this, then Romney will have managed to jujitsu his way out of it and thus put Obama on defense instead of offense.  Like Romney told Harry Reid early on in the non-existent scandal, Obama will have to “put up, or shut up”.