Mission accomplished: Harry Reid has no regrets for lies about Romney

CNN photo

In a revealing interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, departing Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid offered no regrets about lying in 2012 when he said that Republican Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes in 10 or 12 years because, in the end, “Romney didn’t win.”

Bash noted that Reid accused Romney “with no evidence” of having not paid any taxes

“So no regrets?" she asked. “... Some people would even call it McCarthyite.”

“Well, they call it whatever they want,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Romney didn’t win, did he?”

At the time, during the heat of the presidential campaign, Reid explained that "someone" told him that Romney dodged the IRS for many years. Fact-checkers quickly pointed out that it was almost inconceivable that Romney failed to pay taxes for a decade or more without leaving a long paper trail indicating that the IRS was after him.

At The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza expresses well-justified outrage over this sleazy move and Reid's justification for it:
"How about with the fact that this all-means-justify-the-ends logic — assuming the end is your desired one — is absolutely toxic for politics and, more importantly, democracy.  (Worth noting: Reid is far from the only one who practices this sort of thinking; it's the rule rather than the exception in political Washington, where winning — no matter the cost — is the only goal that matters.)

"If you can lie — or, at a minimum, mislead based on scant information or rumor — then anything is justified in pursuit of winning. This sort of "the winners make the rules" approach is part of the broader partisan problem facing Washington and the polarization afflicting the nation more broadly.  There is no trust between the two parties because they believe — and have some real justification for believing — that the other side will say and do literally anything to win.

" ... Allowing elected officials to say anything they want about people running for office — and requiring zero proof in order to report those claims — seems to be a bridge too far. And to defend that behavior by saying, 'Well, we won, didn't we?' feels like the junior high school logic that shouldn't be employed by the men and women trusted with representing us in Washington — or anywhere else.