CAN'T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME? UM, MAYBE DEVAL PATRICK?

Exquisite timing for this freedom-of-information document release, which reveals that Mitt Romney is a dirty filthy touter of tax increases just hours before the debate that precedes this week's wingnut-purity-test GOP straw poll in Ames, Iowa, and also just as the debt supercommittee in D.C. is taking shape:

Romney's Pitch to S&P Boasted of Revenue Raisers

Former Gov. Mitt Romney boasted this week that when he led Massachusetts, he presided over an increase in the state's bond rating, a contrast to President Barack Obama, who saw Standard & Poor’s downgrade U.S. debt.

But Mr. Romney had an advantage that Mr. Obama sorely wanted but could not get from Congress: tax increases and the closing of tax "loopholes." ...

That's from The Wall Street Journal. But Politico's story notes that these documents weren't released by the Obama administration:

Taxes key to Mitt's '04 pitch to S&P

Gov. Mitt Romney lobbied the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's in 2004 to raise his state's credit rating in part because Massachusetts had raised taxes during an economic downturn two years earlier.

The claim was part of a presentation to the ratings agency obtained by POLITICO under a state freedom of information law from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance....

So it was the president's friend Deval Patrick, or someone else in Massachusetts, who released this at an ideal time to sandbag Obama's strongest potential challenger.

Well played, Governor.

Nice to see that someone knows how to play political hardball. And you always seemed like such a mild-mannered guy. Maybe you could fly down to D.C. and give some lessons.

(And, yeah, I suppose this was coordinated with allies in D.C. -- but when was the last time you remember the Obama administration on its own slipping the shiv into a political opponent so deftly?)