Shading the truth, and then some. It is a mystery why Governor Mitt Romney's sterling character is continually cited as one of his principal attributes. No doubt he's nice to his family, but even by political standards his rhetoric is disingenuous. From his state of residency to the state of his Medicaid proposal, from the harshness of his budget cuts to the breadth of his tax -- whoops, fee -- hikes, Romney's instinct is always to fudge, obfuscate, and sometimes tell what might be charitably called alternative versions of the truth.

Today, the Boston Globe's Scot Lehigh and the Boston Herald's Tom Keane both nail him for it. Romney should be careful: neither Lehigh nor Keane could be described as being among the usual anti-Romney suspects.