For The Past Ten Years Harry Reid's Been Beating His Wife': Megyn Kelly Panel Slams Reid for Tax Comments

Harry Reid's attack on Mitt Romney claiming that "for the past ten years, Romney paid no taxes" has gotten a negative reaction from practically everyone in the media who isn't already a partisan Democrat. Even liberal comedian Jon Stewart blasted Reid as "really, really terrible" on his show last night, and pretended to invoke the ghost of George Romney to call Reid a "two-bit, trash-talking sonofa--" before cutting himself off.

And now that Reid has repeated the charge from the Senate floor, a panel on Megyn Kelly's "America Live" has fired back with an even more cutting response. Specifically, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen described Reid's attack as a thoroughly disingenuous piece of rhetorical sleight-of-hand and to prove his point, jokingly made a similar charge against Reid:

In response to Reid taking to the Senate floor to declare that “the word is out” that Romney avoided taxation for ten years, Thiessen quipped: “The word is out that for the past ten years Harry Reid has been beating his wife. Do I know that? Do I have any proof? No. But the burden of proof is on him to prove that he hasn’t been beating his wife.”

“That’s essentially what Harry Reid just did to Mitt Romney,” Thiessen said.

“What does ‘the word is out’ mean?” he continued. “He admits he doesn’t have any proof. In fact, this is the quote: he said, ‘Do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But I don’t think that the burden of proof should be on me, the burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid taxes.’”

When liberal guest Julie Roginsky tried to defend the charge, claiming that it was fair game, given that Romney hadn't released his tax returns, Thiessen hit back again, citing Reid's unreleased tax returns:

“What is in those tax returns? I’d like to know. What the heck, let’s speculate. Is he taking money from corrupt casino moguls? Is he on the take from the Las Vegas mob? The word is out that Harry Reid is corrupt. I have no evidence whatsoever that Harry Reid is corrupt, but I’ve made the accusation. Let him prove that I’m wrong.”

Needless to say, this "guilty until proven innocent" logic came off the worse. Or as Thiessen put it, "I mean, that's Orwellian."

Watch Thiessen rebuke Reid below: