Hmmm….. From the AP (via Brietbart):
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.
In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.
The story goes on from there (in rather excrutiating detail, also at MSNBC), and frankly, Polimom’s eyes glazed right over. LLCs and who paid what percentage of taxes when, and almost links to somebody who was connected to somebody else….
Polimom’s trying to get exercised about this story. Really. But it might as well be a story about space aliens; business deals like this are totally out of my bailiwick. Thus (as I often do when I just don’t get something), I went looking for other folks’ opinion, and since this story is about the Democratic Leader, I went first to the conservatives. If anybody has an oar in the water here, it’ll be them…. right?
Maybe.
Captain Ed is very excited, for instance, about the Culture of Corruption, and hooks everything together with an earlier story he wrote. Usually, he writes with great clarity, but either this story is too complicated for Polimom to follow (very possible), or he’s reaching.
Other conservative bloggers are far less inflamed. It was from Glenn Reynolds, though, that I came closer to seeing the forest for the trees… and this clarity came from reader comments that he posted. Very helpful.
Oddly, a number of folks are upset because Harry Reid hung up the phone on the AP journalist who called to ask about the deal. Rude, but not particularly titillating.
After all this reading, I came away with nothing more satisfying than an irrepressible urge to yawn. If this is a scandal for the Democrats, it needs a lot more sex to get much traction.
Is there corruption in the Capitol? Well yes, Virginia, there doubtless is. Is Reid a problem? Hard to say — though I’d not be surprised if that’s a yes. He’s a politician, ergo…
Is it limited to one party? Clearly not, and I don’t trust any of them any more. Maybe we’d do better with a Citizen’s Ethics Committee.
And yes, it certainly seems to be a busy October for journalists. Wonder why… (Are we there yet?)