Well folks that's it for the Mittster - he was caught on tape with an earpiece! Listen for yourself as someone whispers "he raised taxes":

Call every radio and TV talk show you can and tell them to play this on the air! Let's expose Romney to the world as the fraud that he is. And when we're done with Romney, let's expose Bush too for wearing an earpiece at every debate, press conference and interview since 2004!

Update 1: MSNBC first blogged about the whisper (h/t The Shotgun Blog):

but then scrubbed its own damning blog:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/24/607191.aspx

but here's the Google News link:

Why did MSNBC scrub the evidence of Romney's fraud? Email letters@msnbc.com

Update 2: This story is getting buzz on the blogs, including CrooksandLiars, Raw Story, Rolling Stone, Democratic Underground, Free Republic...

Update 3: Romney's blog defenders claim the whisper was in Tim Russert's ear, not Romney's, because Russert didn't mention "raising taxes" in his question. But that doesn't explain why Mitt Romney's immediate reply to Russert's question was to say, "I'm not gonna raise taxes" - before Russert specifically mentioned "raising taxes." Listen for yourself at CrooksAndLiars. Here's the transcript:

Russert: Governor Romney, you're a big fan of Ronald Reagan. Will you do for Social Security what Ronald Reagan did in 1983?

[Whisper]: He raised taxes

Romney: I'm not gonna raise taxes. What I'm gonna do...

Russert: Well Ronald Reagan raised the payroll tax and he raised the retirement age...

Romney: I'm not gonna raise taxes

Update 4: For those of you never heard about Bush's earpiece, here's the photo that broke the story:

As Dave Lindorff reported, The New York Times had a story ready to run a week before the 2004 election where a well-known NASA photo analyst was prepared to risk his professional reputation that there was something under Bush's jacket, but the Times killed the story to help Bush steal a second term. I have blogged about it repeatedly ever since.

Update 5: We now have an official explanation from MSNBC - blame the audience:

Domenico Montanaro, an NBC News political researcher, wrote on the network’s political blog, First Read: “After reviewing the tapes, NBC determined that an open mic[rophone] picked up a whisper from the audience.

.“It is unclear who it is that says it, but it was not said by any of the candidates, was not heard in the hall and, more importantly, not heard by the candidates.”

Is that the end of the story?

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