The AP is fair and balanced, too

Here's the lead from AP writer John Solomon's latest in his series of intrepid reports on Harry Reid's fight nights:

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.

Wow, so Reid decided that it was a violation of Senate ethics rules to accept the freebies? Say, that is quite a story.

Or it would be, if that was what Reid was acknowledging.

The part of the rules that Reid misstated was when he said that ethics rules allowed him to take ringside seats courtesy of a government agency because the government agency was in his state. Actually, the rules allow a senator from any state to accept a gift from a government agency in any state. And that is the damning mistake that Reid acknowledged Wednesday night.

But the way Solomon wrote the lead, it suggests that Reid is admitting that accepting the tickets, credentials, freebies, whatever, is a violation of ethics rules. And we can completely understand why Solomon would write it that way -- it'll get more attention.

In his Vegas blog for the LATimes, Richard Abowitz, typically not a political animal, suggests that you can't buy ringside tickets to a Las Vegas prize fight even if you can afford it: "Those seats are only available if you have some serious juice." And by that logic, Abowitz suggests that McCain, too, was getting favored by virtue of being a senator, even though McCain paid. "Plenty of wealthy people would have loved to shell out big bucks for ringside seats — but few wealthy people get the chance. Ticket access requires influence...To me this story is all about the special privileges an elected representative of the people receives, ones that that the people themselves don't get."

Well said. Look, Reid is a pampered, arrogant, puffed up man in possession of an inflated sense of his own importance and accustomed to special treatment. Hell, for that matter, so is McCain -- maybe more so. In other words, they're both standard-issue United States senators.

And that may go a long way toward explaining not only why Reid thinks, or thought, it was perfectly fine for him to take the seats, but also his subsequent handling of the issue, which has ranged from  pathetic to inept. Vowing not take the seats any more is the first, maybe the only, smart thing he's done this week.

But as political scandals go, holy smackers this is small beer. The only reason the stories are getting the play that they are is because the much more significant and mostly Republican scandals have prompted a timid mainstream media to try to be fair and balanced, lest Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity accuse them of bias.

Slippery slope, that. For instance, can we now expect a story from John Solomon and the AP providing a full roster of all the other governors, senators and public officials, of both parties, who have been seated ringside courtesy of the Nevada Athletic Commission over the years? That'd be the fair and balanced thing to do.

Probably not. But apparently we can expect Solomon and the AP to insert sentences constructed of turbo-spin where leads to news stories should be, in an effort to maximize the sensationalism, and thus the legs, of a story.

Comments

[Ringside to the Apocalypse]

Dayvid Figler's KNPR commentary about Reid's supposed ethical violations best summed up this whole underwhelming mess.

Speaking of which, nice appearance on "State of Nevada" yesterday, Gleaner guy. You and Muth should have yer own show.

[mc]

I agree. I ran back to my car after an errand so I could listen. Great stuff