PAUL RAHE: Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney.

When it comes to politics, I am given to wariness. I am inclined to suspect that the candidates are – how shall I say? – less upstanding and less principled than they at first seem, and I regret to have to report that my suspicions are usually borne out. The more I learn, alas, the less I generally find to like.

This applies to Barack Obama as much as it applies to his Republican opponents. When he has run for office he has been strangely fortunate His opponents often have “accidents.” Embarrassing divorce records, which were sealed by the court, somehow find their way into the hands of the press. You know what I mean.

All of this leads me to wonder whether, by chance, a political appointee in the Obama administration working at the IRS broke the rules, took a peek at Mitt Romney’s recent tax returns, and reported to David Axelrod or to the Great Prevaricator himself the fact that the fabulously rich former Governor of Massachusetts ordinarily paid his income tax a much lower rate than you or I do.

Do you think that I am being too suspicious? Is it an accident that the op-ed published by Warren Buffett applies so well to the prospective Republican nominee?

Were I the chair of the appropriate committee in the House of Representatives, I think that I would look into this matter. In Chicago, whence Barack Obama comes, no one would ever think a development so convenient for the incumbent executive an accident. In Chicago, there are no accidents.

It does fit Obama’s M.O. Then there’s this.

UPDATE: Reader John Etheredge writes: “Just wait until they have all of the medical records.”