The timing of Harry Reid's attack on Romney's taxes

Is Harry Reid making up claims about Romney's taxes to distract Americans from the economic numbers when they are released?  The attack on Romney was made the afternoon before the latest unemployment numbers were released.  From Steve Huntley at the Chicago Sun-Times:

Romney’s tax returns, or so President Barack Obama’s campaign and his supporters believe. Their hope is that Americans care more about how much taxes Romney paid than they do about their own economic well-being after nearly four years of his failed economic policies. Such is the contempt the Obama camp holds for the voters.

That attitude is equaled by a contempt for the notion of truth and fair play. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada took to the Senate floor to issue a charge from an unnamed source that Romney hadn’t paid income taxes for 10 years. So outrageous was this smear that even mainstream media types not known for their love of Republicans and conservatives, such as CBS veteran Bob Schieffer, likened Reid’s claim to the notorious Sen. Joe McCarthy and his 1950s destructive lies saying he had the names of communists in the State Department.
In Reid’s book, re-electing Obama trumps everything, even the institution he leads. . . .