Team Hillary has been making a central tenant of their rationale for continuing this race past Tuesday, despite the fact that the numbers just aren’t there, that Obama has not been vetted and we need more time to make sure there is not "buyer's remorse".
Well I say what's good for the goose is good for the gander and it is time we fully vet Hillary as well.
Time to cough up those tax returns...
If you stop and think about what Hillary is doing it's pretty audacious.
She is basically saying that we need to take the time to vet everything thoroughly before we go into a general election against a Republican so there will be no surprises. She wants to fully explore Obama and Rezko. She wants to get to the bottom of the NAFTA/Canada issue. She wants to continue to push the National Security Fear card. She wants to do all of these things in the guise of making sure we fully vet our next Democratic Presidential nominee....
EXCEPT RELEASE HER TAX RETURNS.
Why is this an issue?
It is an issue because when a candidate who has been in public service for most of her life (i.e. never making more than $160K a year) suddenly loans her campaign 5 Million dollars eyebrows are raised. Did this money come from her book sales? Her previous work as a corporate lawyer and board member for WalMart? And most importantly did this come from Bill Clinton?
Lets go to the Telegraph for some more details:
Over the last six years, Mr Clinton has struck lucrative consultancy and advisory contracts with a playboy billionaire and done business with a Gulf emir.
He also courted figures ranging from a Central Asian autocrat to Arab sheikhs, as he built his charitable foundation and financed his glitzy presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In the process he has developed one of the world’s leading philanthropic organisations and made himself and his wife Hillary rich - just six years after they were so saddled in debts from investigations into the Whitewater land deal and Monica Lewinsky affair that they had to borrow money from Democratic fund-raising chief Terry McAuliffe to buy a home near New York.
The colourful cast of friends, donors and business partners accrued by Mr Clinton is now raising questions about potential conflicts of interest as the former First Lady aims to become the next Democratic president.
Mr Clinton has already started to disentangle himself from two high-profile deals.
Most notably, he is expected to receive about $20 million when he severs his ties with the Yucaipa investment funds headed by his friend Ron Burkle, a famously eligible bachelor who appears in the gossip columns as often as the business pages.
The Wall Street Journal reported that one of his partners in the global investment fund is an entity connected to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, also believed to be a major donor to the Clinton presidential library.
Mr Clinton’s ties to the sheikh have already put him at odds with political stances adopted by his wife.
Two years ago, she was outspoken in her denunciation of the Bush administration’s plan to sell control of six major US ports to Dubai Ports World, but it later emerged that her husband was advising the Arab emirate how to handle the furore.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Mr Clinton flew to Kazakhstan on the executive jet of Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and multi-million dollar backer of the Clinton Foundation who was also seeking a contract with the Kazakh government.
Mr Giustra, who organised a lavish charity dinner for Mr Clinton’s 60th birthday, was subsequently awarded a lucrative uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan ahead of more experienced industry competitors
At the end of the day this boils down to a political question: Are we willing to roll the dice and hope there is nothing there? Why is Hillary waiting to release her returns? Why should general election voters see them but not primary voters? What is she hiding?
If Hillary stays in this race after Tuesday the Obama camp needs to bang the drums on this tax return issue hard and daily. All of us who have voted or will vote in the primaries need to demand she release her returns. We simply cannot "trust her" that there is nothing there and then sit back and allow the Republican machine to do a Duakakis on her this fall.
This is important and it is story we will have plenty of time to move before Pennsylvania. Where are your tax returns Hillary?