The rather thorough thumping Mitt Romney got in the South Carolina primary Saturday finally convinced our ever petulant office seeker torelease his latest tax returns for the consumption of a barbarous public. After getting his spot blown up by Newt Gingrich, of all insufferable monsters, Mitt appears to have realized that stammering with indignation every time the subject of his colossal wealth came up was perhaps the worst electoral strategy ever conceived. Live and learn, we guess! But seriously, can he just have the keys to the White House already? He is beginning to find this all rather bothersome!

Some brave soul on Mitt's pit crew must have raided the contents of C:\PRIVATE\OFFSHORE\ISLANDS\CAYMANS\TAXES\ over the weekend, forcing Mitt to explain (in a very excellent approximation of our human speech!) why his campaign decided to be so SO boneheaded for so so long:

"Given all the attention that's been focused on tax returns, given the distraction I think they became in these last couple of weeks, look, I'm going to make it very clear to you right now Chris, I'm going to release my tax returns for 2010, which is the last returns that were completed," he said. "I'll do them on Tuesday of this week. I'm also at the same time going to release an estimate for 2011 tax returns. So you'll have two years, people can take a good look at it."

And wouldn't you know it, President Obama is scheduled to deliver the State of the Union address this very same Tuesday! As you may know, the media generally begins its pre-game SOTU coverage 12-14 hours before the actual speech, meaning there's a high likelihood Romney's returns will get buried under all the Twatting and hologramming. Also consuming a fair amount of press oxygen will be Certified Conservative Hero Herman Cain's SOTU response on behalf of the Tea Party Express.

Mitt, however, did make the unforced error of promising that there will not be a "second release down the road," ensuring that, ha, of course there will be, and it will probably reveal that he used the proceeds from late-term abortions to single-handedly fund ACORN and La Raza.  [Politico/NPR]