Harry Reid is a political bully. His latest abuse of power was speaking in the well of the Senate and accusing Mitt Romney of not paying any taxes for ten years. Did he offer any evidence? No. He’s a Democrat. He doesn’t need evidence.

Even some in the media have blasted Reid’s unsubstantiated accusations:

“It’s one of the most outrageous charges that I’ve ever seen made on the Senate floor,” ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl said Sunday on This Week.

Even usually liberal comedian Jon Stewart mocked Reid on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. “Here’s a rule of thumb: if you have to follow your claim with the words ‘I don’t know if that’s true,’ then shut up.”

Conservative columnist George Will pointed out that there is no reason to believe that an investor in Bain Capital would have specific knowledge of Romney’s tax returns. “That’s as though . . . as an investor in Microsoft I now have opinions on Bill Gates’ tax returns.”

None of these criticisms stopped former Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs from stating the following on CNN’s State of the Union, “Have you ever seen anybody go to such great lengths to not put something out? And when you generally don’t put something out, isn’t it because you’re generally hiding something?”

Gibbs is splaying to the public’s envy – the fifty percent who live in a world where other people’s money is the cause of their affliction. If the rich didn’t have as much money, they would be in better financial condition. This is always the liberal’s promise. And it works, too.

In his 2008 autobiography, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington, Reid details how he was accused of having mob ties “without a shred of substantiating evidence.” Although exonerated, Reid writes that “the ordeal had taken its toll. Terrible claims had been released by federal agents without a shred of substantiating evidence. . . . To me, the whole period was the worst time in my family’s life.”

Romney was right to confront Reid with “put up or shut up.”

The most troubling thing about Reid’s accusation has been the near silence of the Republicans. This seemed to have changed on Sunday.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus went so far as to call Reid a “dirty liar” in an interview on ABC’s This Week, and GOP lawmakers — including Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The Republicans are starting to sound like Dirty Harry. Finally! Romney should invite Clint Eastwood over and watch a few Dirty Harry films with him. “At a fundraiser in the Idaho resort town of Sun Valley, where Eastwood owns a home, Romney said the legendary actor and director ‘just made my day’” when he hard Eastwood had endorsed him. Hopefully some of Clint’s characters will rub off on him, Gran Torino style.

The Romney tax return attacks are all about diverting the attention of the American public from the worsening economy. Unfortunately, too many Americans are interested in diversion rather than real issues.