Wow. Bizarre and sad as it is, this is almost kind of fun.
The AP sent out a detailed response to our reporting and that of Media Matters on John Solomon’s piece on Harry Reid. Paul Kiel, over at TPMmuckraker, had intended to respond to it today. But he got so bogged down with the new distortions and bamboozlement in Solomon’s follow-up reporting that he didn’t get to it.
Now, I just noticed that Media Matters has their response to the AP, along with the AP’s original defense of its reporting, posted at their site.
So this gave me a chance to glance over some of the AP’s claims about TPMmuckraker’s reporting. And most of the assertions are so demonstrably false that it’s hard for me even to figure what sort of meltdown is going on over there.
Again, Paul’s going to address the AP’s rejoinder to TPMmuckraker tomorrow in some systematic sort of fashion. But let me just hit on some points that jumped out at me.
Here’s one example from the AP …
TPM Muckraker stated mistakenly that AP failed to report that there is an absolute exemption allowing lawmakers to take gifts from federal, state and local officials. AP, in fact, accurately reported that there is a general exemption for such gifts but that the Congressional ethics manual clearly warns members of Congress against accepting such normally permitted gifts if they are connected to efforts to influence their position on legislation.
All I can think is to be generous and assume the author of this response actually hadn’t read what Paul Kiel — who’s been covering this at TPMm — wrote.
Paul was very clear. What he said was that Solomon buried these details down in the piece in order to create a lead that made the whole ticket issue seem like a much bigger deal than it was.
Was Paul not clear enough about this?
Look at his words. In the post in question, Paul reprinted Solomon’s one sentence lead, then explained the details which significantly deflate Solomon’s story. And then he says this …
Now, Solomon puts all these facts in his piece. So he’s not covering up a key piece of information like he did last time. He seems to realize that he doesn’t have any real story. So Solomon argues that Reid, out of an abundance of caution, should have paid for the tickets to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
(ed.note: The reference to ‘last time’ is back in February when we caught Solomon bamboozling on the Reid beat the first time.)
So AP: “TPMMuckraker stated mistakenly that AP failed to report …” and TPMmuckraker: “Solomon puts all these facts in his piece. So he’s not covering up a key piece of information …”
What am I missing? If you have any question that the antecedents of ‘these facts’ includes reference to the exemption issue, I encourage you to read the post.
At another point in the AP rebuttal they write, “Contrary to TPM Muckraker assertions, Senator Reid did not vote against the legislation the Nevada commission supported. Senators Reid and McCain sponsored legislation the commission wanted to change.”
Again, bizarre. The AP says we said something we never said and then ‘rebuts’ our nonexistent-statement with what we actually said. And if you look at the point that’s actually at issue — whether Reid came down for or against the commission’s position — the distinction he’s alleging is basically a distinction without a difference.
What Kiel wrote was that Reid voted for legislation the commission opposed. I tried scanning through Kiel’s posts to see if there were any instances where he bollixed up the sentence and said Reid voted against legislation they supported (as the AP claims) as opposed to voting for legislation they opposed. But, as far as I can tell, he didn’t even do that.
(ed.note: Again, if you have any questions about what I’m asserting about our coverage, you can find every post we’ve published on this topic collected together here.)
Who says the commission opposed the legislation? Well, among others, John Solomon. As Paul quotes Solomon saying, Reid supported creating a “commission that Nevada’s agency feared might usurp its authority.”
After this response came out, Solomon tried to imply that Reid changed the legislation to be more to the commission’s liking. But late this afternoon Kiel exposed this one as yet another howler.
I mean, I think I’d be within my rights to say they’re just making it up. Like they can’t help it: ‘Stop me before I bamboozle again!’ But, again, I figure they just didn’t bother to read what we wrote before issuing their rebuttal.
What do you make of it?
