The non event
Posted by Greg on October 12, 2006
How soon before critics on the right question whether the latest AP asshattery against Harry Reid is an aptly timed election ploy? Couldn’t Karl Rove come up with something better than this as an October Surprise? Granted, I don’t think NoKo or Foley were quite what the administration had in mind…
The most succinct summary goes thus:
The AP’s John Solomon, the go-to guy at the Associated Press for any anti-Democratic efforts, and this piece is absolute crap. The crux of the claim:
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.
Actually, he did own that land. It just so happened that three years ago, he transfered the property from his own personal name to that of an LLC.
It’d be kind of like me selling Daily Kos, and someone claiming I reaped a windfall from it because I “sold it three years ago”. I didn’t. Daily Kos became an LLC. As did Reid’s piece of land.
And btw, this was all disclosed to the ethics committee. The place were things got sloppy is that Reid continued to disclose ownership of the land as a personal asset rather than ownership in the LLC which owned the land. But that’s it. Fact is, the LLC had no other assets other than this piece of land, and Reid disclosed ownership of the piece of land.
Solomon is either being dishonest or an idiot. But watch the wingers and GOP try to gain traction off this story to divert from their coddling of a sexual predator.
Update: Note that there is no charge or evidence or anything that would suggest that Reid used his position of authority to boost the value of the land. That would be troublesome. As it is in NC-11 where Rep. Charles Taylor (R) used earmarks to line his pockets:
And there you have it. Also see Balloon Juice which asks:
So, what is the story behind the stories? Did Reid run over John Solomon’s dog? Maybe John Solomon just serves as a convenient outlet for smear merchants who know that he won’t ask too many questions. Either way you have to wonder whether the AP is best served by keeping this guy around.
