Washington Post Again Defends Romney

Sunday, 12 August 2012 00:00 By Robert Parry, Consortium News | News Analysis

Mitt Romney is running the most secretive presidential campaign in modern U.S. history. He won’t give details on his policies, his principles, his business record at Bain Capital, or his tax returns. Yet his cover-ups have found a surprising ally, the Washington Post, reports Robert Parry.

The Washington Post’s neocon editors have again rallied to Mitt Romney’s defense, this time accusing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of McCarthyism for citing an unnamed Bain Capital investor as saying Romney paid no income taxes for 10 years.

“If the senator has any proof, he owes it to Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to put it on the record, now,” the Post wrote in a Wednesday editorial. “Otherwise, Mr. Reid ought to pause and reflect on the record of another senator who once claimed to have a list of Communists and spies at the State Department — and could not substantiate it. Mr. Reid’s smear tactics are not unlike those of Joseph McCarthy and deserve equal condemnation.”

Really? Citing a source who says Romney didn’t pay taxes – presumably because he didn’t earn taxable income during some years and thus not in violation of any tax laws – is the same as accusing professional Foreign Service officers of treason and ruining their careers? To equate the two situations suggests that the Post’s neocon editors have lost all sense of proportionality.

McCarthy’s victims also were in no position to defend themselves once the witch hunts began. McCarthy used his Senate committee to drag people before the cameras and confront them with vague accusations of treachery and disloyalty. The accused were required to somehow prove the negative when, to do so, was nearly impossible.

(More here.)