NYT: What a Tangled Web

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/blow-what-a-tangled-web.html?_r=1

What a Tangled Web
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: July 13, 2012


Mitt Romney’s stories just don’t jibe.

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Blind trusts, Swiss bank accounts and Bermuda accounts designed to shield your money from the taxing agency of the country you want to lead just doesn’t sound right. And Romney’s reluctance to reveal more suggests that there is more that’s distasteful.

In general, people are uneasy when politicians are unwilling to disclose details. President Obama learned this as it related to his birth certificate. He may have been withholding it on principle because no other president had been forced to go to such an extent to prove his legitimacy, but, eventually, the damage being done by withholding became greater than the principle. So he released it, and much — but not all — of the second-guessing went away.

Romney may have to reach that decision more quickly than Obama. The narrative is starting to take hold that he is dishonest, devious and irreconcilably different. These are simple, deadly character flaws in a candidate because they’re antithetical to the American ideal of the presidency.

This is the country of George Washington and the cherry tree lore — the tender story of a little boy who would become the nation’s first president and the now famous line “I cannot tell a lie.” Whether truth or fable, it’s a fixture.

One thing that seems questionable is Romney’s tax return defense that, “all the taxes are paid, as appropriate.” Propriety is a matter of perspective.

My mother used to say: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.” The simple truth makes sense, stands on its own and can be proved. Nine times out of 10, things that require constant clarification and endless appending aren’t the simple truth.

That’s mother’s wit, and everyone has a mother.