The Associated Press reports today that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) misstated the ethics rules when defending his receiving of boxing seats and will no longer accept tickets to boxing matches to avoid the appearance of any impropriety. Unfortunately for the AP this story continues to misslead readers. Paul Kiel explains:

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." ... 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.

Here is the misleading lede from the AP:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid learned that what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas after all. A day after The Associated Press reported Reid accepted free ringside seats to boxing matches from a Nevada agency trying to influence him on federal boxing legislation, the senator offered his own ethics justification to a home state audience in Las Vegas. And he vowed to keep taking such gifts. But Reid's comments Tuesday quickly reached Washington, where several ethics experts concluded the Senate leader had misstated the Senate rules to his constituents. Within hours of being questioned by AP about the ethics experts' assertions, Reid's office abruptly reversed course and acknowledged Wednesday night he had misspoken about the ethics rules.

Now, I'm all for muckraking and uncovering what our elected officials are up to in Washington -- what they are doing in broad daylight. But writing a piece that seems intent on misleading the reader is unethical in itself. We already have enough disillusionment with our leaders who actually are corrupt. We don't need some hatchet job article that makes somebody who doesn't seem to have done anything wrong look corrupt. I'm sure that there's more corruption and graft going on in earmarking and government contracting. If the AP wants to break a story why don't they focus there instead of following dead-end trails that force them to make stuff up.

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Yesterday, I went over why the Associated Press article on Harry Reid and the nonsensical reaction by certain partisans was completely off the mark. I also said that it was my personal opinion that Reid probably should have paid for the tickets to eliminate the appearance of impropriety, even though it appeared that nothing untoward had occured. Well, Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker and the Las Vegas Review Journal reinforce my first argument while showing that my personal opinion was wrong. You see, it would have been against the law for Reid to have paid for the tickets because they weren't tickets:

But it turns out that it would have been illegal for Reid to reimburse the commission for the seats. That's because these weren't actually tickets - they were credentials with no face value given to V.I.P.'s. And according to the boxing promoter who awarded those credentials to Reid, it is illegal for the commission to accept payment for them. Despite that, McCain insisted on paying, and so the commission simply gave his check (written for a seemingly arbitrary amount) to a charity since it couldn't accept it. What's more, that same promoter says that in other cases where Reid and McCain received tickets that could be reimbursed, Reid paid. That's a key fact which, if true, was left out of Solomon's article.

So, Reid didn't break the law and that is a story? Soon we will be seeing headlines like this: "BREAKING NEWS: Over 500 lawmakers may or may not have done something wrong."

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Sometimes it's just good to make sense. Often times in politics nonsense rules the day. Whether it's a politician spouting some nonsensical rhetoric in an effort to pander, dodge, or maintain ideological blinders or a partisan operative or blogger who just didn't read the article which they are using to support their partisan viewpoint we are inundated with nonsense. Today there was news that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) accepted boxing tickets from the Nevada State Gaming Authority while he was attempting to regulate the industry. Now for the example of nonsense, courtesy Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, "the Senate Minority Leader has been exposed as taking favors from a notoriously corrupt industry while he intervened on their behalf."

Before Morrissey gets to this piece of nonsense he makes an important point that is true: that the scandals surrounding William Jefferson (D-LA) and Alan Mollohan (D-WV) have undermined the ability of the Democrats to use ethics as a hammer to pound on Republicans. Then he goes about using nonsense to attack Reid and claim that he is discrediting his party as Mollohan and Jefferson have. Let's start with the end of the sentence about Reid: "while he intervened on their behalf." This seems like the key to unlocking the nonsense in his statement because Reid actually voted for more regulation and against the Nevada State Gaming Authority. That would mean that Reid DID NOT intervene on the behalf of the Gaming Authority.

Morrissey also brings up Reid's contacts with his former staffer Eddie Ayoob, who went on to work with Jack Abramoff. Morrissey states that Reid made "four interventions on behalf of clients of Jack Abramoff". Now if this was provable then we would have a problem. Unfortunately for Morrissey all the evidence points to the fact that Reid did not intervene or act in favor of Abramoff clients due to campaign contributions or any other form of graft (honest or not). In one instance Reid, along with Nevada's junior Senator John Ensign (R-NV), wrote a letter to the Interior Department opposing the construction of an off-reservation casino that was also opposed by an Abramoff tribal client. While questions have been raised about the number of letters written regarding this particular off-reservation casino, and questions of some of those letters are valid, the Reid-Ensign letter seems based on protecting an industry vital to their state's commerce.

Reid has a long-standing opposition to off-reservation gambling and has had a number of dust-ups with Indian casinos and tribal gaming authorities. In 2001 he attempted to block the construction of a tribal casino near the san Francisco Bay Area and in 1997 he asked Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate unregulated Indian casinos that were operating without gaming compacts -- at the time there were a number operating in Inland Empire, California. Reid also blocked a bill that would have allowed for more electronic gambling machines in California. It becomes clear when you look at Reid's history that he has consistently and vocally opposed efforts to expand gambling operations that could cost his state's biggest tourist draw, and biggest money-machine, business. So, it doesn't make sense that say that Harry Reid intervened on behalf of an Abramoff client because he was influenced by money and Eddie Ayoob. Plus, I have never heard any credible report that Reid was under any kind of investigation by the Justice Department.

The other interventions that Morrissey mentions involved the Northern Marianas Islands where Abramoff was trying to keep Congress from imposing labor and minimum wage restrictions from being applied. Reid was contacted by Ayoob about this and then voted for the labor regulations and the minimum wage law. I don't understand how voting against the guy you are supposedly intervening for is corrupt -- if anything it is the opposite.

To get back to the boxing tickets, it seems that Reid should have paid for his tickets so that he could avoid an appearance of being influenced. Often times that is the biggest problem with accepting these gifts and with the excess of campaign contributions. They give an impression to the average American that the entire system is corrupt, that democracy is only for those who can afford it, and that they are locked out of the process. The appearance here is more important than anything else, especially considering that no law was broken and no vote was influenced. But for Morrissey and others who engage in this kind of nonsense, from either side of the aisle, I'll leave you with the words of the late, great Bill Hicks: It doesn't make any sense, if you just walk it back.

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