The Week

• They’ll stop at nothing, those Republicans — even quoting the president’s words.

• At the moment, the Obama campaign’s major message appears to be that Mitt Romney is an outsourcer who won’t release enough tax returns. Romney argues that if he releases more, the Democrats will distort what’s in them and demand still more. We can’t imagine anything in Romney’s tax returns that would make a rational voter turn against him, which weakens the argument for the public’s right to know. Past candidates have disclosed more than Romney, either in the form of tax returns or in that of Senate financial-disclosure filings, which strengthens it. Our judgment, expressed on National Review Online, was that Romney would strengthen his position by releasing more tax returns. He risks flare-ups of this controversy that will make it harder for him to get his more important points through the media. If he released more, Democrats would indeed take their shots and be unsatisfied, but it would be easier to deflect their demands if Romney matched the disclosure rates of recent candidates. This advice may, however, be moot. Romney has dug in, as have many of his supporters, so releasing more information now would look weak. The point he should make from here on out: His tax returns matter less than what Obama would do to everyone else’s.