I erred in saying that the Romney campaign had not attempted to substantiate the candidate’s dubious claim that he supported the Bush tax cuts from the start. His aides did make an attempt; it was just pathetic. They have a quote from Romney supporting Bush in August 2004, more than a year after he proposed the 2003 tax cuts.

They have a quote from Romney commending Bush in 2002 for standing against tax increases–which isn’t at issue. And they have a quote from Bush in 2002 saying that he “knows” that Romney wanted to make the tax cuts permanent. What we don’t have is a quote from Romney supporting the cuts in capital-gains and dividends taxes and the acceleration of income-tax rate reductions while it was actually being debated in Washington in 2003. And we have a news account, as Byron mentioned, in which Romney conspicuously declined to support those tax cuts. I don’t think that it was terrible for the governor to stay out of a D.C. debate, although it would have been nice if he had helped out. But the record is what it is.