As everyone knows, Harry Reid recently claimed Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes, per a double-secret source — and says Mitt Romney bears the burden of proving his unsubstantiated allegations to be false:

“I don’t think the burden should be on me,” Reid said. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn’t he release his tax returns?”

Now Reid is doubling down:

As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

. . . .

It’s clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is. Whatever Romney’s hiding probably speaks volumes about how he would approach issues that directly impact middle-class families, like tax reform and the economy. When you are running for president, you should be an open book.

Led by Instapundit, the conservative blogosphere has had a field day with Reid, as exemplified by this from Beldar:

We simply can’t know that all the rumors about Harry Reid’s pederasty are false until he releases his personal porn collection. Of course, if he denies having a porn collection, we will know he’s a liar.

The list of things Harry Reid needs to deny is growing.

Commenters have debated whether the latter-day Adam Smith should have lost his job over this:

I don’t intend to participate in that debate. My view is that it’s his employer’s decision, not mine.

But I do want to point out why his behavior was so offensive. I think commenter crosspatch expressed part of the reason in this comment:

The problem I have with Mr. Smith’s rant is that it is inherently unfair. The woman at the window obviously can not respond with what she might wish to day because her rhetorical hands are tied by being a customer service representative of her employer. Mr. Smith, on the other hand, can say whatever he wants.

Absolutely right — but it goes beyond that. By telling the woman “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here” while pointing a camera at her, he intended to personally humiliate her — to punish her for having the nerve to try to earn a living at a restaurant whose owner has said and done things with which Smith disagrees. And Smith intended to take the video of her humiliation and spread it as far and wide as possible.

So he berated a low-wage food service worker for views that weren’t necessarily hers, in a situation where she had no ability to respond in kind, as a way to embarrass and harass her in the most public way he could manage.

That’s the behavior of a bully.

It would have been different if Smith had chosen to confront Dan Cathy with a video camera. Cathy can defend himself. He is not constrained to be polite in the same way the nameless food service worker was.

I won’t opine about Smith’s employment, but I will make this observation: Chick-Fil-A should promote the woman in the video. She handled a difficult situation with poise and grace. Adam Smith intended to make her the face of Chick-Fil-A — and believed that would be a bad thing for the company. Now, on computer screens across the nation, she is the face of Chick-Fil-A — and it does the company credit. If Dan Cathy hasn’t already gotten on the phone to make sure she gets ahead in the organization, then he’s blowing a golden opportunity.