The Burden of Proof

This part of Newton Leroy's happy horseshit from yesterday's debate is particularly interesting:

Let me be quite clear. The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican. They're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. I'm sure they'll probably get around to Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul. I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.

The story, of course, is that Newton asked his then-wife, Marianne, for permission to fuck Calista while remaining married to Marianne, and Marianne said "no." Newton says that every friend who knew him and Marianne knew the story was false. That is, every friend of Newton's who knew the couple knew that Newton was banging Calista, and also knew that he didn't ask Marianne for permission to bang. Because if a friend didn't know Newton was banging Calista, how could he or she know whether Newton asked Marianne for permission to bang Calista? And how could such friends say the story was false if they didn't even know the predicate fact?

In the interest of complete fairness to Newton, ABC News should disclose the names of the several Newton friends who Newton offered up as character witnesses. Then the media can ask those friends how they know Newton never asked his wife for permission to bang. It's what Newton claims he wants, and he's entitled to no less. Because surely Newton didn't proffer his character witnesses to get ABC to kill the interview. Since those individuals would have no personal knowledge of what Newt asked his wife in private, they couldn't offer any actual "proof" to disprove what Marianne is saying.

(Of course, I don't care about Newton's peabrained urges, nor do I care what his ex-wife thinks of him. I'm more interested in the fact that Newton can blow smoke up people's asses and the SCLM just plays along.)