louisiana governor bobby jindal. yesterday, he joins bobby jindal in louisiana for fund-raisers. the beltway press describing him as buzzed about as one of romney's most visible supporters and as a vp short lister. >> i'm bobby jindal, governor of louisiana. >> according to the washington post, bobby jindal's stock is on the rise. the paper extolling the many conservative virtues that make him a possible vice presidential choice, like for example, criticizing president obama. republican voters love that. and fighting with democrats on tv. that's a must. also, he is not old. mossel tav. and there's the rolling back of medical care for the poor and uninsured in his state. maybe that could cancel out romney care in massachusetts? in fact, it would be a huge deal if mitt romney did pick bobby jindal as his running back, in part because it would be a

history making choice. bobby jindal, of course, would be the first indian american on a major party presidential ticket. and the republican party does not have a great record for breaking even their own party's glass ceilings. to say nothing of making history all by themselves. usually, it's been the democratic party who has nominated the various firsts among national candidates. for starters, there's our first african-american president, democrat. the first catholic presidential nominee, al smith, who ran against and lost to herbert hoover in 1928. al smith, democrat. the first jewish candidate on a major party ticket, joe lieberman, democrat. even the first woman candidate, 24 years before republicans got around to breaking the same glass ceiling, there was geraldine ferraro in 1984. she ran alongside walter mondale against ronald reagan and george bush the elder, and walter

mondale and geraldine ferraro got crushed. they lost that election by an enormous margin. they lost 49 states. this is what the electoral map looked like in 1984. just a sea of red. and now, what is mostly forgotten to history about that election in which geraldine ferraro did not become the first woman vice president. what is largely forgotten about that election is a tax return scandal which among other things showed that geraldine ferraro and her husband owed more than $50,000 in back taxes. turned up on their tax returns. they blamed it on an error blamed by an accountant. they paid off the back taxes, although the geraldine ferraro financial mess was a fascinating little election jeer scandal, it does not tend to be cited as a key factor in the spectacular loss in 1984. the reason we care at all about the geraldine ferraro tax scandal that has mostly been forgotten, the only reason it

matters is because it represents as big a scandal as there is in american politics stemming from a candidate's tax returns. it's pretty much just geraldine ferraro and those back taxes in 1984 which everybody forgot about. after the ferraro scandal that year in the 1988 presidential election, george h.w. bush released 14 years of his tax returns going back to 1973. there's no exact number of years that is the standard. but when mitt romney says the president is that you don't have to release much in the way of tax returns, just a couple years will do it, that's not true. the obama campaign released this chart this week showing how many years worth of tax returns the last four presidents released as they campaigned for office. they're putting this out because they think mr. romney has been wrong when he asserted he's following precedent. he released eight years. george w. bush released ten. clinton released 12 years.

poppy bush released 14 years. then they added on another guy, the last blue column, that is george romney, who is just a candidate for president. he of course never became president, but he is mitt romney's dad. so what's normal in presidential politics is to release many years of your tax returns. the romney campaign if they cont wanted to could come back and say all those people who became president and my dad released more than five years, sure, that's a precedent. but there's also another precedent, john mccain only released two years. the romney campaign if they wanted to could make that case. john mccain did only release two years of his tax returns when he ran for president. here's the political problem for the romney campaign on talking about john mccain in these terms. a, john mccain lost. b, john mccain was also the guy who had that problem of not being able to return how many houses he had, which probably

the romney campaign doesn't want to remind anybody about. more importantly, c, john mccain seriously considered mitt romney to be his vice president. vice presidency, and this is a strange thing about our politics, it's a really important job that in effect is chosen mostly by one person. there isn't an election to see who becomes the vice presidential nominee. you're just hoping the presidential nominee individually, personally picks you. in that contest in the last election, mitt romney was up against sarah palin for vice president. and mitt romney lost to sarah palin. john mccain denouncing today what he called a stupid question about that today. saying the reason he decided not to pick mr. romney for vice president after he vetted him for the job was because, quote, we thought sarah palin was the better candidate. he meant this as a sign of support for mr. romney, but it did not come out that way. the main reason mitt romney cannot defend his decision this

year to not release his tax returns based on what john mccain did last time around is because when mitt romney was trying to get john mccain to pick him as the vice presidential nominee, mr. romney gave to john mccain 23 years of his own tax returns. 23 years. mr. romney felt okay disclosing that much about himself in order to try to get the job of vice president. but now that he wants the job of president, not so much. >> i have already put out one year of tax returns. we'll put out the next year of tax returns as soon as the accountants have that ready, and that's what we're going to put out. >> you know what, i put out as much as we're going to put out. people will have a couple years of tax returns. that's plenty. >> this is getting worse for mitt romney. over time. because of course, the criticism on this is not just coming from democrats. it's coming from his own side. >> should release the tax returns tomorrow. it's crazy. you have to release six, eight, ten years of tax returns.

>> if something is going to come out, get it out in a hurry. i do not know why given that mr. romney knew the day that mccain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for president again, that he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of this offshore accounts and all of the rest. >> tax returns, should he release the tax returns? >> i would. >> the fact is there are a couple years where he may not have paid any taxes at all. maybe he's concerned about that. maybe he's concerned about offshore accounts. but if it's going to come out, he needs to get it out now so he has a couple months to explain it. >> there's obviously something there. >> put out as much information if you can, even if you don't release 12 years, at least three, four, five. >> today, the national review conservative magazine also in an editorial called on mr. romney to release his returns, saying his position looks secretive and is a departure from campaign conventions. he's not just taking criticism

from his own side, from within his own party and from over conservatives, it's not just that all of these key conservatives are off message or uncoordinated on this issue. it's not that surface. the problem is deeper than that. the problem is that all of the questions around mr. romney's personal finances are considerable and substantive questions and they're not being answered. this is not a name calling thing. this is not a political choreography problem or a messaging problem. this is conspicuously unanswered problems. and the thing is they become more acute the longer they go unanswered. and mr. romney is not getting any closer to answer these questions. in his interview today with the national review, this was his answer to why he hasn't gotten rid of his offshore accounts specifically, quote, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. the decisions made by the trustee are decisions that determine where the investments are. the reason he keeps his money offshore is it's in a blind trust.

it's not his decision. which might pass for an answer if he wasn't this guy. >> the blind trust is an age old ruse, if you will, which is to say you can always tell the blind trust what it can and cannot do. you give a blind trust rules. >> that's what he said about blind trusts when he was running for senate against ted kennedy. how about a no offshore accounts rule? but there's more to his answer to the national review about what he keeps money stashes in offshore accounts. he was not relying exclusively on the excuse he once dismissed as a ruse. the so-called offshore account in the cayman islands is established by a u.s. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in u.s. enterprises and not be suggest to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. okay, so this account of his in the caymans is the good kind of thing.

a good kind of offshore account because it's designed to help foreign people invest in the u.s. and avoid paying u.s. taxes when they do it. great. so why is his money there? come on, are you foreign? quote, sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the united states, which may will be the case with the entities that democrats are describing as foreign accounts. so his answer to this is what? that he's a foreign investor in the united states? his own explanation is that this type of account is a good thing for america. it's set up so foreigners can put their money in that account and invest it in america while avoided u.s. taxes. that's the state of his current explanation. that's as far as he has gotten to explain why he might hypothetically have an offshore account. that's how foreigners invest in america. >> and there's the issue of his i.r.a., his individual

retirement account. this is a thing that lots of people have. a method of putting money away that avoids it being taxed and the idea is that you're saving that money for your retirement. an individual retirement account. but because it is a way of avoiding taxation, there's a limit to how much you can put in one of these accounts. typically, you can not put more than $6,000 a year into a traditional i.r.a. $6,000 a year. mitt romney's i.r.a. has as much as $100 million in it. either he has somehow figured out how to contribute to his i.r.a. for nearly 17,000 years or there's some other explanation for that. i'm sure there's a explanation, but what is it? there is smoke, which is usually what gets covered in politics, right? and there's also fire. and this isn't something where there appears to be smoke and fire. there's criticism of mr. romney from his own side, which is kinetic activity that looks like a campaign in trouble.

that sort of thing is run of the mill politics. but this is not just bad optics or bad message control. there is something real and substantive here for which we do not have any reasonable answers. mr. romney is wrong when he said there is no precedent for presidential nominees releasing more than a couple years of their tax returns. there is a precedent. it's very clear, and his explanations for why he has not released tax returns himself are getting worse, not better, over time. joining us now is dan rather, the anchor and managing editor of "dan rather reports." he's covered presidential politics since 1960. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> do you think the questions around mr. romney's tax returns are run-of-the-mill politics? this is the sort of thing that happens every year, he should be expected to resist these calls or does it stand out? >> it stands out. you did the precedence before. this is very curious.

that mitt romney, he's in a hole, and he just keeps digging. it's very clear when it comes to his stand, i'm not going to release my taxes beyond last year and the coming year, whatever it is, for two years, in an old country phrase, that dog won't hunt. he and his staff must realize that. they're on the defensive. they want to talk about the economy and lack of jobs and barack obama's record. instead, they're against the ropes and they're -- to mix a metaphor, they're being beaten like a rented mule, and they have got to get off it some time before the convention. i'll be very surprised, i frequently am surprised, as you know, i would be surprised if he doesn't release some tax returns. he needs to release three to five years and maybe eight years. if he doesn't do that, he's going to stay on the defensive all summer. >> the last time that we

actually got tax return information released from mr. romney was early in the spring, i believe. when he faced another round of conservative criticism on the subject. even people like chris christie who was vying for vice president, was saying he ought to release those. he seems susceptible to pressure on his own side. is it notable that his own side seems so willing to pressure him? all of these people speaking out who are clearly on his side in the election saying he's got to move on this. that kind of open criticism, what does it say about the relationship between mr. romney's campaign and the conservative establishment? >> it says a lot and none of it is good. he's got to release the tax returns sooner or later, and someone said when you have bad news, bad news does not get better with time. get out in front of it. he would have most of the summer and part of the fall to explain it. this is inexplicable to me. i said before i think he has a good chance to win.

barack obama as an incumbent president is no better than even money at this point to win the election. here, it gives every appearance of romney trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by holding firm to this. george will, one of the most intelligent of commentaries and on the right side of things, a republican supporter, said in effect, there must be something really damaging in those tax returns or he would have released them a long time ago. that may or may not prove to be true, but when it comes to it, he's got to get off the defensive. the only way you can do it right now is release tax returns. i'll be surprised, frequently surprised, but i'll be surprised if he doesn't do it and do it fairly soon. >> there's obviously some emotional and political significance to citing romney's father as part of the precedent of people releasing those taxes. that was quite a step for him to have taken.

there was no expectation that candidates would release multiple years of their tax returns or even one year. there was no precedent established since him. i wonder when you take a big picture look back at that, was that a good thing that george romney did for american politics? it was a noble thing for his campaign. was it good for american politics? >> it was a good thing for the country. we are a people who believe in transparency and accountability. if you made mistakes on your taxes, own up to it, pay the taxes, pay the penalty and move on. there's something very strange about it. i cannot for the life of me figure it out. mitt romney for whatever else he may or may not be, he's a very intelligent person and an experienced politician. this is too strange, holds to his point, i'm not going to release my taxes on an extensive basis. if he holds to that, he's going to stay on the defensive at least through the summer and

maybe through the whole campaign instead of talking about what he want to talk about, jobs, the economy, how he can fix the economy and so forth. >> he's an experienced politician, of all of the times he ran for office, he only won once. >> that's a point. >> i want to ask you about a program you have airing tonight on hiv in the south. a phenomenal angle on the proportion of cases in the south. >> this is our story. hiv/aids are most prevalent now in the south. 8 to 10 states we used to call deep dixie. the public is still fixed on the idea, this is basically a new york city and san francisco kind of problem. the south has the most cases. they have the least help for cases. they get the least on a proportional basis of federal funding. this came as a great surprise to me and it's on the program tonight and will be repeated throughout the week. >> an issue close to my heart. anchor and manager editor of

"dan rather reports" on access tv. the title is "it's a southern thing." on the increasing rates of hiv infections across the southern states. mr. rather, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me on. >> lots ahead still, including batman and the really quite unbelievable reason that our nation's secretary of state got a bunch of tomatoes thrown at her. please stay with us.

you know how bad the left

wing loons in hollyweird want to keep their liberal socialist puppet in office so he can take over america, rob us, and rule us forever with the gay military and the free stuff? you know how bad? you know how bad? bad. >> not only was that not the

that was like the a-block, the >> yeah, see, the villains in batman were pre-named decades in advance in anticipation of a 2012 presidential election in which one of the candidates would have a contested affiliation with a company named bain. that's why they named the villain bane. the conspiracy is deep and it has a lot of foresight. decades of foresight. also gone with the wind was an early salvo of the clean energy movement. and obviously, apollo creed from the rocky movies is proof that the moon landing is fake. the creed of apollo. can't you see, sheeple?

the modern american right is hermetically sealed in a media universe that lets in no natural light and no air. they breathe in only their own exhalations and in that sealed oxygen deprived environment, they have become addicted to conspiracy theories which mostly is hilarious, but occasionally, it has real world consequences like today in the united states senate when republicans blocked ratification of the law of the sea treaty, even though it was supported by the obama administration and by the bush administration and by the pentagon and by the navy and by republicans you might have heard of named henry kissinger, george schultz, colin powell, condoleezza rice. their arguments were no match in the senate for the conspiracy theorists who told republican senators they ought to vote against this thing because, you know, black helicopters or whatever, one world government. occasionally, the conspiracy

theories on the right travel even further than to the main stream of republican politics as they did on that issue today. occasionally, the far right conspiracy theories that animate your crazy uncle who watches fox news all day, occasionally, they escape our borders which is when it starts to hit the fan, and that's what just happened. that's coming up. stay with us.

if we exclude people in prison and we exclude people who are not well known, people who are not famous. a universe of people in this country who are well known people and who are not incarcerated, of that universe of people, if you were running for office this year, whose endorsement would you least want for your run for office? what famous non-incarcerated person in america offers the most toxic political endorsement of all? i think i know who you're thinking of and he just gave his endorsement on camera. that's next.

however the rest of the 2012 election plays out, this particular stretch of the campaign for mitt romney can almost only be filed under very, very bad. with perhaps a subheading of, and then it got worse.

the controversy over when he left bain capital has only grown, and every attack his campaign has tried to launch has boom ranged back at them since then. now the leaders of mr. romney's own party are calling on him to release his own tax returns which he is still steadfastly refusing to do. they're criticizing the romney campaign not just for the tax return thing, but for how badly they're handling everything they're not handling as a campaign. every time it has seems it couldn't get worse for romney, they have gotten worse. today, in the middle of his already bad tine, the worst thing yet happened. president george w. bush for the first time on camera endorsed him. >> i told -- pretty unattractive metaphor, but i said i crawled out of the swamp, and i'm not crawling back in. and you know, i'm interested in politics. i'm, you know, a supporter of

mitt romney. i hope he does well. but he can do well without me. >> last question on africa. >> last question on africa. quick change the subject. that really was president george w. bush's first on camera endorsement of the presumptive republican nominee. the last republican president endorsing the guy who wants to be the next republican president. the previous endorsement of romney came in the form of an off camera quote. i'm for mitt romney, the president said, and then he disappeared. later on this youtube interview today with someone from the conservative hoover institution at stanford university, president bush talked about why he's sorry the bush tax cuts were named for him. it hurts their chances for survival. it would have been better if they would have been called the cheney tax cuts instead?

you have to hunt george w. bush interviews on youtube. it's cheney hosting fund-raisers for romney at his house. he won't even say george w. bush's name on the record. dick cheney is the guy republicans have welcomed back to capitol hill today to argue for his chosen policies on the military. while george w. bush was making his 22nd endorsement that included referring to politics as a swamp he crawled out of in an hour-long interview with an obscure think tank. this california college think tank listed the interview privately. if he looks teeth on edge while he's making the endorsement, maybe it's because he seems to recognize that no one wants to run with him as the wind beneath their wings. do not count george bush out. he's reinventing himself starting with a new book that's out today. it's called "the 4% solution,

unleashing the economic growth america needs," and there's a foreword by president bush, says his name twice on the cover, has a bunch of essays by economists he likes, about how the economy can be made to grow at a rate of 4% a year, which is something he thinks he could do, i guess he just decided not do that as president. 4% economic growth might as well have been a unicorn in his presidency. the bush economy still averaged less than 3% growth in his presidency. in all of american history since world were ii, we have averaged 3.2% growth. that's the deal, except in president bush's new 4% miracle growth book where unicorns play in strawberry fields and real angels make your buttermilk pancakes on saturday morning. with this vision he was keeping secret before, he is trying to reinvent himself as a president who people think of as having an economic legacy.

an economic legacy worth naming and claiming and by the way, he now endorses mitt romney for the nation's highest office. that's where democrats have been trying to roll this presidential campaign. democrats want to park their bus on the spot labeled george w. bush equals mitt romney, equals bad economic news for you. george bush wants to remind the world of republicans' record on the economy. you can almost hear president obama saying oh, please, oh, please. >> we spent almost a decade doing what they prescribed. and how did it turn out? we didn't see greater job growth. we didn't see middle class security. we saw the opposite. and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes. precisely because there were no regulations that were adequate to the kinds of recklessness

that was being carried out. i don't know how you operate in your life, but my general rule is if i do something and it doesn't work, i don't go back to doing it. >> that was the first of four events for the obama re-election campaign in texas today. in george w. bush's backyard on the day he puts out his economic growth how-to book. you will have a report from barack obama's charge across texas coming up next. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and save you up to thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. call today to request a free decision guide

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we did not embark on this journey just to get back to where we were in 2007. we worked hard because we want a country where everybody gets a fair shot. and everybody is doing their fair share, and everybody is playing by the same set of rules. that's why i ran for president in 2008. and that's why i'm running for a second term as president of the united states of america. president barack obama speaking to a crowd of latino supporters in san antonio, texas, today. one of four campaign events for the president today in texas. president in those remarks of course reminding everyone of exactly when it was he ran for president, thereby implicitly reminding everyone who he succeeded in office.

george w. bush endorsing mitt romney to be, i guess, his one after successor. joining us is wayne slater, the co-author of "bush's brain." you reported from one of the fund-raiser. >> great to be with you. >> today, we had george w. bush finally endorse mitt romney on camera for the first time. he also released a book about how to get 4% economic growth, which is something he did not achieve as president. when president obama was running tonight in bush's backyard in texas, did he seem to you to be running against bush's legacy? >> absolutely. it was a remarkable thing today as i sat there listening to barack obama talk about the last near decade, he mentioned it two or three times, at one point, made a reference to the bush tax cuts.

he effectively was saying, i am talking about the guy who 150 miles away, up in dallas, texas, is now promoting the idea, oh, goody, goody, that i think we ought to deal the way i want to with the economy. the way we used to. barack obama was talking again and again about the bush legacy. he talked about how he had ended one of the two wars, on credit. obviously part of the bush legacy. he talked about the economy, when he was delivered, basically, at the end of the bush years. the bush economy. he talked about fundamentally everything that made george bush's legacy in a sense it was a conversation not about mitt romney at all, but about george bush and barack obama. >> george b. wish has said repeatedly since he left office he was going to keep a low profile. he was going back to private lives. he doesn't think it's helpful to have former presidents involved in the election.

but we do have president bush today in the middle of the campaign season releasing a book on economic policy. and making this endorsement of mitt romney while at the same time saying he can do well without me. at the same time that he did it, are we seeing sort of two sides of the coin or maybe two edges of the sword from george w. bush in terms of what he sees his legacy as in this campaign and who it attends to? >> one of the things that is important to understand about george w. bush is that while he and the people around him like to say they don't care as much about the legacy, they don't care about the politics, he cares deeply about his legacy. and both karl rove and others, bushies from the past, are working actively around the bush institute and elsewhere to promote the ideals. the problem is that bush's legacy is in three parts. one was foreign policy and that's problematic in retrospect.

two is the economy, and my gosh, how do you deal with the economic issues which should have been something that was successfully dealt with by an mba president when everyone sees that the economy went flat at the end of your administration and you handed barack obama basically a bag of rocks. the third thing, of course, which is the cue degraw is he was the guy who nominated john roberts, who gave us obama care. he's the last guy who mitt romney and many republicans want mentioned this campaign year. >> mitt romney has proven your point by i think not once saying george w. bush's name on the record, at least not recently. he has been happy to appear with dick cheney, and it's had me thinking about how the various players in this, in this sort of dance you're talking about, how they may be interacting with one another. obviously, dick cheney is happy to play a public role. he was on capitol hill today. karl rove has his own role as a

republican king maker. i wonder what your take is on what karl rove may have to say about important decisions in the romney campaign, both concerning george w. bush and also about a vice presidential candidate. it's pawlenty, ryan, jindal, and portman. we have karl rove's pick is marco rubio. how much influence does he have? >> rove has zero influence on these folks except, of course, he heads up the super pac that's going to spend a lot of money, and that's a good thing for the romney point of view. but rove and the bushies are personas non grata, whatever the right latin is to make sure these people should stay away. rove can articulate a strong republican message, but he is not the person that romney is listening to. bush is not the person that the romney campaign wants everyone reminded of.

the bush years are over. >> wayne slater, senior political writer for the dallas morning news. it's great to have you here. >> great to be leer. >> all right, new crazy conspiracy theories are cooking on the right. and they're producing, it turns out, a very, very far reaching smell. hold on. that's coming up.

since becoming secretary of state in 2009, hillary clinton has logged 351 days on the road. she's traveled to 102 countries and flown a whopping 843,000 miles. you don't achieve a record like that, of course, by letting any moss grow on you. in the past two weeks alone, hillary clinton has been in france and afghanistan, in japan, in mongolia, in vietnam, in laos, in cambodia, in egypt, and finally, in israel, where she toured tel aviv today. what'd you do over the last couple of weeks?

and this last trip for hillary clinton has been a very eventful one. secretary clinton's trip to egypt this past weekend was kind of a good news/bad news thing. while she was there, two americans from boston, who were being held hostage by apparently a disgruntled bedouin with a relative in prison, those hostages were finally released from captivity. that came after secretary clinton raised the issue of their kidnapping with egyptian officials. so that was the good news from her trip to egypt, american hostages freed. the bad news, however, was this. >> her total was surrounded by protesters and her motorcade was pelted with food, with water, and with shoes as she exited the u.s. consulate in alexandria. >> egyptian protesters pelting hillary clinton's motorcade with shoes and tomatoes. the crowd also reportedly shouted "monica, monica" at her over and over again. stay classy. what was the reason for all the protesting?

>> u.s. official say that the secretary was surprised to learn that there's a perception in egypt that the u.s. manipulated the recent elections in favor of the muslim brotherhood. >> diplomacy is also complicated, and perceptions of america in the middle east are always convoluted. but where did these egyptian protesters, who were throwing tomatoes at hillary clinton, get this conspiracy theory that the only reason the muslim brotherhood won the egyptian elections is because of us? is because the united states was secretly in cahoots with them. you know, america and the muslim brotherhood, we're like this, where do they get that idea from? look at the signs they were waving during this big anti-hillary clinton protest. clinton is the supreme guide of the muslim brotherhood. really, are you sure we're talking about the same hillary clinton here? there was also this one, stop u.s. funding of the muslim brotherhood. where do they get this stuff from? turns out they get this stuff from glenn beckistan. they get it from the crazy conspiracy theories cooked up on the american right.

i'm not just theorizing that's where they're getting this stuff, that's where they say they're getting this stuff from. "the new york times" "the lead" had a really good journalistic detective story on this. they traced back various people's interviews with protesters and they fold links that people gave to information and the citations they were using for their arguments and "the times" was able to suss out where this subset of egyptians, these protesters that just attacked hillary clinton with tomatoes, where they got this cockamamy ideas that the u.s. is in cahoots with the new islamist regime in egypt. "pressed by american reporters to explain where they got the idea that their new islamist president, mohammed morsi, had been foisted on them through an american plot, rather than through the will of the majority, several egyptians cited information gathered from american blogs or news sites." "an egyptian american christian who met mrs. clinton on sunday cited recent claims by representative michele bachmann, a republican, quote, that the obama administration is pursuing a closeted pro-muslim agenda."

that was in a conversation with a "time" magazine correspondent. michele bachmann, that's the source of the information being used by the protesters in egypt, awesome. but not just her. a blogster sarah ahmed directed a reporter to a paper that said that an american conservative. which american conservatives? it was an episode of a web radio program hosted by frank gaffney, who was speaking with a retired american general named william boykin. yes, the same frank gaffney who once claimed that the new u.s. missile defense logo was smoking gun evidence of barack obama's submission to sharia. when he found out that the logo was actually from the bush administration, he retracted his claim. general william boykin, the guy that george w. bush inexplicably appointed to a position.

when "the wall street journal" tried to reporter who this boykin guy was, the egyptian ploger, quote, remained resolute in her belief that a former official who served in such a high position in the pentagon would not make such accusations without proof. wanna bet?! there was one other source of information for these anti-american egyptian protesters. quote, a blog post about american aid to egypt that was based on a news story posted on lucianne.com, a site ran by lucianne goldberg, an american conservative who played a central role in the monica lewinsky scandal. so the source of the information was in part michele bachmann, a crazy anti-obama conspiracy theorist guy, a crazy anti-islam conspiracy theorist guy, and one of the lady who is tried to take down bill clinton over the monica lewinsky affair. >> monica!

monica! monica! monica! monica! monica! >> the jeers, a reference to the monica lewinsky scandal, when her husband when the president. >> try to keep the smile out of your voice there, fox. this is a global village. we are interconnected. and our mean-spirited, afraid of black helicopters, buy gold, get yourself a bunker, glenn beck crazy uncle has apparently started wandering loose out in the village. the rest of the world is now listening to him. this is one of the great challenges posed to us having the political system that we have in this free information global world. how do we let the rest of the world know that our village id yachts, who we love, should not be taken seriously. yes, michele bachmann is a member of congress, but not like a regular member of congress. you should not take her as an authority on anything, ever. our system is open and free, and that means we have some whack jobs. but isn't there some sort of warning label we could put on our crazy spear theorists for

the benefit of the rest of the world. not for outside consumption. please deliver home if found lost in the world. tax burden. mitt romney pushes back after calls from the obama campaign and prominent republicans to disclose more of his tax returns. going down. a vehicle plunges into the elevator shaft of a parking garage. and crack up. an iceberg twice the size of manhattan splits off from a greenland glacier. good morning, everyone, i'm lynn berry. those stories and more straight ahead. this is "first look" on msnbc.

we're going to begin this morning with a taxing situation. presumptive republican presidential candidate mitt romney has been under increasing pressure from the obama campaign to release additional years of tax returns. now romney is even dismissing calls from within his own party. nbc's tracie potts joins us from washington with more on all of this. tracie, good morning to you. >> hi, lynn. good morning, everyone. it's not just democrats as you mentioned who want to see more of what romney has earned in recent years but now prominent republicans as well. mississippi governor haley barbour, alabama's governor bentley also calling on him to release those returns. no word from the romney camp that any further release is on the way, and they are not alone. texas governor rick perry, a former republican rival says that romney should be as open as possible. meantime on the other side we've got republicans criticizing the obama campaign for what they're saying about mitt romney. john mccain calls the campaign disgraceful for targeting th