Harry Reid Isn't Being Fair to Romney- But I Don't Mind

Big story the last few days is Harry Reid's continuing carping about Mitt Romney's tax returns.  Reid has said that he has a source (whom he won't name) who tells him that Romney won't release his tax returns because he doesn't want people to know that he actually paid no taxes for a number of years.  Romney is livid about this, responding with a classic line “I have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes, so Harry is wrong,” Romney said at a news conference. “Harry Reid has to put up or shut up. Harry, who are your sources?”
I can't imagine this will work- after all, the one who could shut Harry Reid up really quickly is Mitt Romney; all he has to do is release the returns himself and prove Reid wrong.  He doesn't want to do so, and it must be because there's something in there that will be bad politically for him.  Maybe Reid is even right, and Romney has used paper losses to avoid paying taxes- legal but not very good optics.

Of course, this is all speculation- we don't know anything about what's in there, and Reid might not know either.  Even if his source is legitimate, he's repeating rumors without any backing, not at all a fair thing to do.

The Politico article linked to above notes that Reid doesn't care at all if polite society critcizes him (led by liberal Jon Stewart).  But Republicans have been using dirty stuff like this without any apparent shame.  Mitt Romney is the biggest liar in campaign history.  Republicans in Congress refuse to denounce the crackpot Birthers in their party.  Michelle Bachman accuses an apparently blameless woman of being a Muslim Brotherhood operative and is backed up by Newt Gingrich.  There doesn't seem to be much in the way of scruples on the right side of the political spectrum.

So I'm not saying Reid is right and justified in his attacks; I'm just saying that Democrats can't unilaterally disarm.  Reid is the right person to lodge these types of attacks, since he's not running for anything and is not formally connected to the Obama campaign.  It's kind of scummy, but this is the Big Leagues, and the Democrats need to stop bringing knives to gunfights.