Yesterday’s Washington Examiner posted an article about a recent statement by Senator Harry Reid.

Senator Reid stated:

“His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said, in reference to George Romney’s standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s. Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?

“You guys have said his wealth is $250 million,” Reid went on. “Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

There are a number of obvious problems with this statement. First of all, the article asks, “How would an investor in Bain Capital have access to Governor Romney’s tax returns?” Secondly, do you honestly believe that a public figure (as Governor Romney was after the Olympics) who earned the kind of money that Governor Romney earned would not have had his tax returns examined very carefully by the IRS.

The article also reminds us:

And in what Romney has released of his tax returns, he paid $6.2 million in taxes over two years.

This is the lowest form of sleaze so far in the campaign.