AP’s Solomon Sucker Punches ReidJohn Solomon’s at it again.
Tonight, the AP released a new story on Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). It purports to show Reid admitting that Solomon was right all along, that Reid mistated senate ethics rules when he initially defended himself against Solomon’s piece — and now he’s coming clean.
We were pretty surprised to see Reid admit that. And as it turns out, he didn’t.
Solomon just arranges the lead in such a way as to mislead readers into thinking Reid said something he didn’t.
Going through all the details involves slogging through some minutiae. But it’s worthwhile because it’s a good illustration of Solomon’s MO in his reporting about Reid: write a hit piece and then distort a follow-up response into looking like the target admitted you’re right (he did a similar thing after his earlier story on Reid’s ties to Jack Abramoff was undermined).
Solomon’s piece begins with the following lead:
Reversing course, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future.
99% of readers – and the AP has many, many readers – will read that lead paragraph and interpret it to mean that Reid has admitted that he misstated Senate ethics rules when he said they allowed him to accept the tickets. He’s chastened and he’s agreed not to do it again.
But as Solomon writes in his next paragraph, Reid still thinks it was “entirely permissible” to have accepted the tickets. It’s hard to square that with Reid’s admission, though, right?
Let’s jump down into the details.
Reid’s argument has been that Senate ethics rules provide an exception for accepting stuff from state agencies as opposed to private entities.
In an interview that appeared in Wednesday’s The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid said that the exception for state agencies only applied to Senators from the state in question. Therefore, the exception applied to him and not Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who paid for his seat, because he was from out of state.
That’s wrong.
It has nothing to do with what state you’re from. The AP caught that and brought it to Reid’s people. They admitted the AP was right on this point and Reid was wrong. And that’s how Solomon can write that Reid “acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets.”
Here’s the passage from Reid’s statement about the rules …
Senate ethics rules specifically permit any senator to accept something of value from a state agency. Senator Reid misspoke when he said the rule applies only to senators who represent the state agency. It was therefore entirely permissible for Senator Reid — a Senator from Nevada — to have attended a major Nevada sporting event as a guest of Nevada officials.
But let’s be clear: What Reid was wrong about wasn’t whether he was allowed to take the tickets. He was wrong about whether McCain was allowed to because he was from out of state. On the larger question, whether he was permitted to accept the tickets, Reid didn’t admit to being wrong because he wasn’t. Zinging Reid on his error would certainly be in order.
But for Solomon, what Reid actually goofed on wasn’t good enough. So he takes Reid’s incorrect statement about McCain and twirls it a lead which has Reid saying what Solomon really wants him to say: that Solomon was right all along. Reid was wrong. And he won’t do it again.
Here’s Solomon’s lead again …
Reversing course, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future.
Read the whole thing and decide for yourself and decide whether Solomon is playing it straight.
Here’s the entirety of Reid’s spokesman’s statement to Solomon that provoked his piece:
Senate ethics rules specifically permit any senator to accept something of value from a state agency. Senator Reid misspoke when he said the rule applies only to senators who represent the state agency. It was therefore entirely permissible for Senator Reid — a Senator from Nevada — to have attended a major Nevada sporting event as a guest of Nevada officials. But in light of questions that have been raised about the practice, Senator Reid will not accept these kinds of credentials in the future in order to avoid even the faintest appearance of impropriety. Senator Reid will continue to fight for his federal boxing bill and other legislation that will benefit Nevada and the nation.
