You're asking for a little consistency from the media. It ain't going to happen.

Will some enterprising reporter ask if Cindy has passed a recent drug test?

Was she ever charged?

Or did she just go free like Librarian Laura?

The answers to these questions, by the way, will almost certainly be the same in both cases: no surprises. Since neither of them are idiots, I'm sure the payoffs to mob figures and shady fixers will be safely off the books.

Absolutely. If this week has taught us anything, it's that ambitious politicians are way too smart to get tripped up by simple financial queries.

Junebug, you beat me to it!

The different treatment can more likely be explained as the traditional media echoing the now incessant calls in the blogosphere and from the Obama campaign for Clinton to "Release the Tax Returns!" If the old media knows how to do anything it is how to follow a herd.

What about J. Sidney McCain III's first wife, the one who waited for him while he was a POW and whom he divorced after he returned to the U.S.? Do we get to see Carol McCain's tax returns? We can see if J. Sidney is living up to the divorce decree and alimony arrangements.

And, of course, current wife (and heiress) Cindy McCain must have an interesting tax return, too. We want to see all of them, right? It's only fair and I know Fox News will be demanding fairness (like it says in their motto).

Not sure from the extracts or a quick Google search, which McCain tax returns have not been made public... all or just last year's? Anybody have a cite?

Also, seems like the Clinton issue was really initiated by Obama, wasn't it? when he challenged Hillary on not releasing hers, whereas he had released his 1040's (but none of the supporting attachments, so no details).

Perhaps, the IRS should simply web post all presidential candidate finalists as a matter of policy. If you want to run for prez, your tax returns WILL be made public.

Way too simple, I suppose...

"But it's hard to blame Weisman for not knowing this, given that the rest of the news media were all but ignoring the subject."

Not sure if Media Matters was being snide, but it would be nice every now and then if our media betters would do a bit of original reporting. Just a bit. Research, find an answer.

Media reports generally take the form of "this is what everyone (in the media) is talking about."

I always wonder who initiates this cascade of gossip, before it enters the circle jerk. Anyone of us could be an expert, since we read the news. We could go on MSNBC and tell them what "everyone" is saying.

It's no dount unfair on Mrs McCain, but here's the satirical card of the original Happy Families game for "Miss Bung the Brewer's Daughter".

Honestly, this whole Clinton's taxes nonsense is just Obama's way of trying to take the heat off himself. No other political couple in the history of this country has had their financial records more closely examined than the Clintons for 15 years. So, really do you think that suddenly, last year they did something so nefarious that it must be hidden? No. These are not stupid people. This bang-bang on the Clintons is to avoid talking about Obama's Rezko connection. Otherwise, Obama might consider releasing the last 15 years of financial records for himself and his wife.

IOKIYAR!

McHeinz McCain

Of course, a week or two ago, who would have guessed that Eliot Spitzer would be mixed up with a prostitution ring.

Maybe somebody should start asking Honest John the same questions they're asking Hillary.

Hillary is being badgered to release?

Beyond the debate with Tim Russert I haven't seen much of this at all. In fact, if anything: McCain and McClinton both seem to be getting a free ride on this one. Guess it helps if you are white eh?

Oops... I didn't mean that: Guess it helps if you are a member of the Old Boys Washington Club eh?

So, really do you think that suddenly, last year they did something so nefarious that it must be hidden?

The Clintons have not released their tax returns since 2000, President Clinton's last year in office.

Of course, that was the same year that Hillary Clinton made "Release your tax returns!" a centerpiece of her Senate campaign against Rick Lazio.

Hey, I'm still waiting to see all those records from Obama's state legislative career that he seems to have misplaced.

Aside from whether one thinks that the candidates should release their returns, HRC admits that she should do so, but only if she wins the nomination. I just can't understand this view. At least Sen. McCain is consistent (although it's unclear whether anyone has asked him about this).

So, really do you think that suddenly, last year they did something so nefarious that it must be hidden?

From a Dec 17, 2007 Bloomberg article

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aGwhTXxfCSHo&refer=home

"When he left the White House in 2000, Bill Clinton reported assets of more than $1 million and legal fees of more than $2.4 million. In his wife's most recent disclosure, Hillary Clinton reported that the couple now has a net worth estimated at between $17.4 million and $53.7 million"

Pretty clearly something beyond book royalties and speaking fees has made them rich since the last time they released their returns. If she has nothing to hide, why not just release them and put the matter to rest?

The Clintons are supposedly worth 30 million+ dollars now. The public should see where that's come from.

And, of course, the fact that she won't release the records speaks for itself.

To ask only Hillary for tax returns but not McCain is odious. Another MSM failure.

This is pretty boring stuff, and so is the preacher's bad lines, and whether or not it's lucky to be African-American "this year." Plus I have learned about as much as I can handle about the differences between the Obama and Clinton health insurance and get-out-of-Iraq plans.

And yet, we are looking at months more of a campaign that everyone righteously agrees is "negative", even "nasty." Now we get to wallow in the issue of does this protracted campaign help or hurt the Democratic Party in the general election?

Wait! I have an idea! Why can't we let the candidates niggle it out in the remaining states and the House Judiciary Committee finally do what it should have done last year? HOLD IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS on the high crimes and misdemeanors of the current President and Vice President? That would distract the whole country toward issues of war without justification or end, of "unitary executive" authority, of politicizing government administration, yadda yadda. Personally I would be more interested in reading about that stuff in the daily news than... Hillary's tax returns and Obama's minister's sermons.

The answers to these questions, by the way, will almost certainly be the same in both cases: no surprises.

—Kevin Drum

Just. Plain. Dumb.

casey, what makes you so sure that "something" beyond books and speaking fees (do you know how much clinton's advance was for his book? it was said to be the highest advance ever at the time, some $12M was the rumored figure. the first hit i found in a google search said that clinton got $7.5M in speaking fees in 2005.

one could go on.

Hillary Clinton also doesn't cheat on her husband as far as I know, whereas John McCain, well.....

One other point, since we are in the realm of the politics of personal destruction. Barack Obama finished first in his class at Harvard, while John McCain finished dead last in his graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy. DEAD LAST.

And who is more qualified to be president again???

All are sitting senators. Their windfalls should be public knowledge. That said, Hillary is supposedly a democrat, and should not have to be shamed into doing the right thing. A pretty simple test. If she is in the pocket of, say, the health care or defense industry, she should just withdraw now.

McCain is heavily invested in companies he doesn't want you to know about.

I can't get up the muster to be shocked like Kevin.
The double standard is pretty obvious to us by now.

For Democrats to get by, they must be squeaky clean.

For Republicans to get caught, they must be extra dirty.

So ask them both to release their tax returns.

Hillary is kinda boxed in, since she's promised to give it up in April. But why worry about McCain? Why do we need to know now? I'd be personally gratified to see the heat on him turned up in, oh, September or October.

Hillary Clinton is a conniving, power-hungry shrew. So too is John McCain. The choice, then, for the American people is obvious: Barack Obama. Easy, isn't it?

I doubt they make payoffs to "mob figures and shady figures," but that isn't required to make either McCain or Clinton shady, or shifty, or corrupt, or immoral, or repugnant themselves.

Let's try: hiding their tax information when running for national office; hiding the extent of their wealth; being beholden to special interest groups; getting paid backwards, forwards, leftwards, and rightwards "speaking fees," "engagement fees," "consulting," etc.; not voting to uphold the constitution and protect the people in the face of Bush's many assaults; the massacres of 1-2 million innocent Iraqis whose family members get gunned down in the street by U.S. troops, whose entire extended families get murdered by U.S. troops in mistaken house invasions (oops!); not stopping torture or even criticizing it enough or giving a damn (good work, John McCain, vote with Bush pretty much all the time so future Americans can get tortured just as badly as you were, or worse).

Etc., etc., etc.

Others have pointed out the fallacies and logical inconsistencies with the rest of apishapa's post, but this sentence struck me:

"This bang-bang on the Clintons is to avoid talking about Obama's Rezko connection."

But if the non-released tax returns take heat off of Obama in any way, then why on earth wouldn't Clinton release them and thus turn the heat back onto her opponent? I don't mean that in a knowing, she-MUST-be-hiding-something sorta way... I mean that sincerely: if the tax returns are a story, and if they create doubts in people's minds, and if these doubts reflect poorly on Hillary, then again: why not simply release the returns?

Again, hypothesis (A) is that she's hiding something. But what are some other possible hypotheses? I can't think of any (apart from Hillary's lame excuse that she hasn't had time). Can you? I'd like to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt here, although that may be a bit naive on my part.

OMG FIREBRAND I AGREE!!

HILLARY CLINTON IS TEH DEVUL

Seriously, take a breath. I've been hating on the Clintons since before it was cool in Democratic circles, and you Obama supporters are too much for even me.

The press hates the Clintons and loves McCain. Is anyone still missing this?

Perhaps it will be revealed that Bill took Nixon-class tax deductions for donating his papers, but who really cares about this? It is probably just the size of their income, which they may feel may inspire populist resentment, that they wish to hide.

"Since neither of them are idiots, I'm sure the payoffs to mob figures and shady fixers will be safely off the books."

You joke Kevin, but there are some who literally believe that about the Clintons. Oy!

Deflator:

Obama went to Columbia, not Harvard, and he didn't graduate at the top of his class. His Senate bio doen't mention any academic honors there at all. He went to Harvard Law School and was elected president of the Law Review, which is probably as impressive as graduating first in his class, but it's not the same as that.

By any measure, McCain was a dreadful student --5th from the bottom, but not "dead last."

I'd be a lot more interested in the extent to which he has, or has not, continued learning since he left the Naval Academy. You probably remember the stories that showed that both Bush and Gore were mediocre students in college, but it's pretty much indisputable that Gore continued to educate himself in the years since he left Harvard, while Bush didn't, after he left Yale.

And does anyone doubt that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would measure up very well, in that respect?

Barack Obama finished first in his class at Harvard, while John McCain finished dead last in his graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy. DEAD LAST.

Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on March 15, 2008 at 7:06 PM |

It is probably just the size of their income, which they may feel may inspire populist resentment, that they wish to hide.

I think it's more likely to be the geographic source of that income, combined with that hefty size, that makes them worry about public reaction.

Look, whether or not we think people are going to freak at something in their returns, it's clear the Clintons do. Otherwise they wouldn't be sitting on eight years of returns while trying to pretend that it's just this year's we're talking about, and OMG, the accountant's still working on them, okay?!

dumb post.

like hillary and john are both victums, but hillary more so???

McCranky keeps his tax returns next to the pickle jar, where both of his miniscule assets remain hidden.

While you're at it, why not clamor for their health records too? And why not clamor for Chelsea's school records? And why not ask for their phone records so we can see who they've been talking to for the past few months? Why not their DMV records, and their clothing sizes?

If there were a legitimate purpose for seeing the tax records, it would be a matter of law that they must reveal them. There are already laws about finances related to being in the Senate and all three have complied. The rest of this is just politics. I see no reason why running for president requires that we know all of the details of a person's life, beyond what they would do in office.

The idea -- well you must have something to hide if you are reluctant to reveal all -- is stupid. There is such a thing as privacy for everyone, not just for you and me. The Clintons have shielded Chelsea because they understand the importance of privacy. This may be an extension of a natural and normal desire to maintain some dignity. Obama has had less exposure and may not yet feel the need to draw strong boundaries between his personal and public lives. Give him time and I'm sure he will feel it too. (That is giving him the benefit of the doubt -- otherwise he is wishing to invade the privacy of his opponents for political reasons.)

Kevin,
Hillary and Bill have released 20 years of tax returns since 1988, and have said they will release this year's before 4/15. How many years of tax returns has Obama released? Answer: one. How can his campaign keep railing against Hillary's failure to disclose when Obama's is much more glaring?

The giant corporations that own the vast majority of the mass media from which the vast majority of Americans get the vast majority of their information want John McCain to become the next president, to continue the Cheney/Bush policies of massive tax cuts for the ultra-rich and deregulation of their industry so that they can gobble up more and more of America's newspapers, networks, TV stations and radio stations. Ultimately their goal is complete, totalitarian control of Americans' access to information -- a control that the Chinese communists with their "great firewall" will only be able to envy.

To that end, they are going to deify John McCain, and actively suppress information about his long career as a white-collar criminal on the take from corporations and their lobbyists, while they crucify the Democratic nominee with a campaign of character assassination that will make the goring of Al Gore and the swiftboating of John Kerry look mild by comparison.

In 2000 and 2004, the corporate-owned mass media played a crucial role -- perhaps the most crucial role -- in making the election close enough for the Republicans to steal it with voter disenfranchisement and fraud.

And that's the plan for 2008.

Kevin, in the Chicago Tribune editorial page this morning, Steve Chapman mentioned in his own, non-sensical, "hard hitting" commentary way that neither Ms. Clinton nor Mr. McCain had released their income tax statements. Ms. Clinton's excuse is she hasn't got around to it. I can understand note getting to her 2007 returns, but her 2006 returns? Methinks both of them are afraid to show the world how much they make or how little they pay in taxes.

Here is an old Daily Howler column about how the Clintons got treated when it came to examining their tax returns in 1998:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h042598_1.shtml

Required reading for Obama supporters who think the Clintons are nothing but dirty.

I found a similar Washington Post article disparaging the Clintons for giving away so much money to various charities through their family foundation and through Bill’s charity. Those awful Clintons. How dare they give away so much money and not reveal all the details in their various tax returns and senate reports (even though most politicians, including Nancy Pelosi and Bill Frist, similarly misreport and underreport participation in family foundations).

No wonder the Clintons aren’t eager to publish this year’s returns. It will evoke a storm of negative comment no matter what they contain, because outrage can be trumped up over anything, even giving large sums to charities.

Baldingeagle wrote: Kevin, Hillary and Bill have released 20 years of tax returns since 1988, and have said they will release this year's before 4/15.

Whereas, Shortstop writes: The Clintons have not released their tax returns since 2000, President Clinton's last year in office.

Baldingeagle.... I believe the discrepancy is that the Clinton's may have released 20 years of tax returns dating back before 2000, but none since then, and that's the real issue here.

"Why not clamor for Chelsea's school records? And why not ask for their phone records so we can see who they've been talking to for the past few months? Why not their DMV records, and their clothing sizes?"

Mary, making tax returns public is absolutely routine for election campaigns at all levels. Children's school records, clothing sizes, etc. are not. The difference is that tax returns can tell you a lot about where candidates get their money, where they invest their money, and whom they might be beholden to once in office. That kind of transparency is good for us and good for government. Clothing sizes are not.

Brian, I have never seen the tax returns of school board candidates or our local mayor, so I believe you are mistaken. Tax returns tell you how someone pays the bills, not who they are beholden to. The campaign donations tell you that.

The Clinton presidency was one of the most transparent in history. Why on earth is anyone suggesting that these are secretive people with things to hide? Politics. Whatever is made public will be fodder for more negative press, regardless of content, and I can fully understand why Clinton would like to defer that until after some crucial primaries.

Can anyone specifically finger which individuals in charge might be behind suppressing that McCain won't release his tax returns, versus Hillary? But Hillary could get press by bringing that up, couldn't she?

Mary,

Do you think it was okay for Hillary Clinton and Howard Wolfson to demand over and over and over that Rick Lazio release his tax returns in the 2000 Senate election? Do you think it was okay for Clinton and Wolfson to repeatedly ask, "What are you hiding?" when Lazio delayed doing so?

If so, why?

Hillary Clinton is a conniving, power-hungry shrew ... oh! for a second there I thought you meant Vicious Power Hungry Bitch. But she is a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence!

Mary, you may not have seen the tax returns for your local mayor, but that does not mean that transparency with one's tax returns is not an issue in mayoral races. Bloomberg, for example, had a fight with his adversaries about the non-release of his returns during his campaign. So you're inaccurate about that. As for school board races, I'll grant you that -- perhaps I was being hyperbolic when I said "at all levels." Let's modify it and say "all levels above the smallest, including mayoral, gubernatorial, congressional, and presidential campaigns." Does that satisfy you?

And as for your claim that the Clintons were so transparent during Bill's tenure -- that only underscores why Hillary's lack of transparency is so disappointing now. What your argument boils down to is that Hillary shouldn't release any tax info b/c it just provides fodder for her enemies. But wait a minute... Isn't Hillary the one claiming she's been vetted already? Isn't she the one claiming she's tough enough to stand up to her opponents' attack machine? By Hillary's own standards your argument is not a legitimate one.

And one more thing: you're also inaccurate about tax returns being so unrevealing when it comes to conflict of interest. If, say, a candidate favors investment in a particular industry, and then his or her tax returns reveal that said candidate has lots of stocks tied up in said industry, then that would tell you something. There are countless other examples like this. I can enumerate them if you like. This is precisely why it's completely customary for candidates to release such information to the public, so we can be more informed voters.