Though Brooks Jackson and Glenn Kessler have become heroes to the Romney campaign and its Republican backers, these "independent fact-checkers" have found themselves increasingly isolated within the journalistic community as more news outlets note the contradictory Bain filings and call for more disclosures by Romney's camp.
On Monday, the New York Times published an editorial, entitled "Mitt Romney's Complaints" with a sub-head, "He is not coming clean with voters and President Obama has nothing to apologize for." The editorial states:
"If Mr. Romney doesn't want to provide real answers to the questions about his career, he had better develop a thicker skin. Mr. Romney's descriptions of when he left Bain have been erratic and self-serving."In 2002, when he needed to show he was still a Massachusetts resident, he denied he had quit in 1999, saying he had taken a leave of absence to run the Olympics committee. A series of documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Committee show that Bain certainly didn't describe him as absent after 1999. ...
"Mr. Romney has persistently refused to tell voters about his finances. Even now it is not clear how much money he has made from Bain in the 13 (or 10) years since he left the company. The right way to respond to Mr. Obama is to release his tax returns from that period, or open up Bain documents. But Mr. Romney told CNN he would not release more than the one year's return he has already released and the one for 2011 when it is finished."
If Annenberg's Jackson and the Post's Kessler want to show that they truly care about facts, they would join the New York Times and others in demanding more disclosures from Romney -- and they would be offended that he is using them to hide relevant information from the American voters.
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