For the Love of Pete

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a new reason for keeping his financial details secret from the American people: his Mormon faith.

Speaking to Parade Magazine, Ann Romney said their tithing to the Mormon Church is so meaningful and personal, she cries every time they sign over a check. “So do I,” Mitt added, “but for a different reason.”

“Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given,” he’s quoted saying. “This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”
  Raw Story

She cries when they turn over money to the church. (Sure.) And Mitt jokes about why he cries about it – the “different reason” presumably because he's parting with so much money. A regular comedian, that Mitt.

And, why was it okay to release the last couple of years' tax returns since he's been campaigning, but not the earlier ones, if he doesn't want to let people know what he's giving to the church? It's supposed to be a tithe – 10% - so you could easily figure out how much he gives to the church if you saw his tax returns. As someone else suggested, the issue might not be so much that you'd know how little taxes he pays, but that he hasn't been paying his 10%, and he doesn't want the Mormon church to find out how much he's stiffed them for.

In the January 22, 2012 episode of “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Romney whether he believed his support for the Mormon Church would pose a problem for his outreach to Christians.

“The Bible speaks about providing tithes and offerings,” he replied. “I made a commitment to my church a long, long time ago that I would give 10 percent of my income to the church, and I followed through on that commitment.”

But even that claim was problematic for Romney, who was dinged by conservatives after the two years of tax returns he released showed he only donated 7 percent to the church in 2010.

Uh-huh. He's short-changing his church. Now THAT's the Mitt Romney we've come to know.

And speaking of comedian Romney....

Mitt Romney can’t seem to stop telling people in Michigan how much he feels at home there, but perhaps he should have stuck to praising the height of the trees. A comment he made on Friday morning — that in Michigan “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised” — is now drawing fire from all sides.

[...]

Later in the day, Romney attempted to do damage control, telling CBS News that his remarks were “not a swipe” at president Obama. “This was fun about us, and coming home,” he insisted. “And humor, you know — we’ve got to have a little humor in a campaign.”
  

Yeah, that was a real laugh. Now, are there ANY documents of yours that people are asking to see?

George W Bush. Mitt Romney. Don't the Republicans have anybody to present for office who isn't a silver-spoon-fed Marie Antoinette poster child? Or is this their ideal type?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.