So now Romney is trying to blame Obama for coming up with his tax plan

To be fair, you can understand why Romney would blame Obama for his plan. Just when you think Mitt Romney has reached the pinnacle of absurdity, he somehow manages to reach new heights. The latest example: now he's claiming that his tax plan'the one that the Tax Policy Center says would force the middle-class to pay the cost of tax cuts for the wealthy'is actually Barack Obama's fault. For real:

While the tax study has emerged as a major component of the economic debate at the core of this year's presidential campaign, Mr. Romney did not allude to the analysis to contest its conclusions as he campaigned in Colorado on Thursday. But in an interview with conservative Fox host Sean Hannity, Mr. Romney said 'my plan is very similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan.'

And, Romney said of Simpson-Bowles, "that was his commission." So I guess that means Romney realizes his tax plan is so politically toxic that instead of defending it on its merits, he'd rather baselessly accuse President Obama of having come up with it first. There's a little problem with that strategy, however.

The Romney proposal, however, has little in common with that bipartisan deficit-reduction proposal from a majority on the fiscal commission that Mr. Obama created in 2010. The Simpson-Bowles plan called for reduced income tax rates, but it would have raised about $2 trillion more in tax revenues over 10 years, mostly from high-income taxpayers, and cut spending to reduce the federal debt.

So, as Stephen Colbert would say, Mitt Romney's tax plan is "very similar" to the Simpson-Bowles plan if by "very similar" you actually mean "completely different."

It's actually a pretty good indication of just how bad Romney's position is that he would resort to this sort of (as he would say) balderdash and poppycock. Yesterday, the best they could do was attack the study's authors instead of attacking the substance of the study. Now Romney is saying his plan is actually Obama's plan. And you don't have to read very far between the lines to realize that if Mitt Romney had one wish it would be that political Etch A Sketches were real.