Honor thy father, Mitt

We’ve gotten used to Mitt Romney saying inscrutable things that leave you wondering what operating system he runs and when it was last updated. But he recently served up a bizarre defense of his extreme tax avoidance strategies:

I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.

There are two legal qualifications to be President of the United States. You must be a born a citizen and you must be thirty-five years old. Mitt adds another qualification: Not paying more taxes than legally due. By this definition if you receive a tax refund, it’s questionable if you’re qualified to be president.

Forget that tea partiers have spent the last year telling Warren Buffett to voluntarily pay more taxes if he wants higher rates. Mitt Romney has set a new qualification to be president. Now we need to see if he meets it.

Only, we can’t.

Mitt has released one sort of complete year of tax returns and that’s it. His father’s standard, as you know now, was twelve years. How could anyone doubt that he should at least be able to produce his returns since he began running for president in 2006.

You’ve told us why you’re qualified to be president, Mitt, according to your own wacky standard. Now you have to prove it.

[CC image by DonkeyHotey]