NY Times editorial linked Reid's attendance at boxing matches to crimes committed by Cunningham, Abramoff
SUMMARY: While stating that "news" that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) "got free seats at three big Las Vegas fights hardly seems the stuff of scandal" and "doesn't prove Mr. Reid wrong," a New York Times editorial nonetheless suggested a similarity between Reid's attendance at the boxing matches as the guest of the Nevada Athletic Commission and crimes committed by former Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham and former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
While stating that "news" that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) "got free seats at three big Las Vegas fights hardly seems the stuff of scandal" and "doesn't prove Mr. Reid wrong," a May 31 New York Times editorial nonetheless suggested a similarity between Reid's attendance at the boxing matches as the guest of the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) and crimes committed by former Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) and former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
In a May 29 article, Associated Press reporter John Solomon suggested that Reid acted improperly by accepting "tickets" from the NAC to three boxing matches in Las Vegas between 2003 and 2005 when Reid was pushing legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing. While the Times asserted that Reid did not violate any Senate ethics rules, the editorial nonetheless connected Reid's attendance at the boxing matches with crimes committed by Cunningham and Abramoff:
This doesn't prove Mr. Reid wrong, but it does illustrate the power of the Caesar's wife rule these days as Capitol corruption becomes an increasing embarrassment. Legislators are watching former Representative Randy Cunningham stew in prison for bribery. They also anxiously await a fuller account of the influence-peddling trail of Jack Abramoff, the corrupt superlobbyist. And they rail at the notion that prosecutors can search their offices.
But Reid's actions bear no relationship to the crimes committed by Cunningham and Abramoff:
- Cunningham resigned his seat in Congress in November 2005 shortly after pleading guilty to accepting nearly $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for helping to award friends and campaign contributors with lucrative defense contracts. On March 3, a federal court in San Diego sentenced Cunningham to eight years and four months in prison, the longest sentence ever given to a member or former member of Congress in any federal corruption case.
- On January 3, 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy to corrupt public officials, mail fraud and tax evasion. The following day, he pleaded guilty to two other counts of wire fraud and conspiracy in a separate case. In March, Abramoff was sentenced to five years and 10 months in a federal prison in the latter case. Abramoff's dealings have also been linked to many Republican members of Congress and their staffs, including two of former House Republican majority leader Tom DeLay's (R-TX) top aides Michael Scanlon and Tony C. Rudy. More recently, Neil Volz, former chief of staff for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), testified in a U.S. District Court that his former boss had been, in the words of The Columbus Dispatch, "a champion on Capitol Hill for Jack Abramoff and his clients before the lobbyist was disgraced."
A May 31 Las Vegas Review-Journal article appeared to undermine much of Solomon's reporting, as Media Matters for America noted.
See my earlier post re: the same...(in particular, the response to LeatherHelmet). No comparison.
[link to mediamatters.org]
I will let Randy "duke " Cunninham answer this question. (from the USA today article)
The government said Cunningham, whom aides referred to as "the Big Chinchilla," "bullied and hectored" Pentagon officials to get what he wanted, and his staff lived in fear of not meeting his demands.
One e-mail exchange, contained in documents the prosecution provided the court, advised an aide of cuts made to a Cunningham request, the staffer wrote, "I am under my desk ducking and covering."
When Cunningham found out a short time later, another e-mail cited in court documents said, "he stormed into his office" complaining, saying that "HE MIGHT AS WELL BECOME A DEMOCRAT.
"While The New York Times editorial asserted that Reid did not violate any Senate ethics rules, the editorial nonetheless connected Reid's attendance at the boxing matches with crimes committed by Cunningham and Abramoff."
While of course no newspaper performs the functions of government, as do legislators, law enforcement officers, and judges and other officers of the court...
Still, can you imagine the worthlessness and incompetence of those I just mentioned who do perform the functions of government, were they to equate (or even consider to have a comparable priority) those things which did not violate any Senate ethics rules with those things which are crimes committed...
CRIMES!
Things which are not only not crimes, but are not even rules violations, versus CRIMES.
If those who perform the functions of our government were to be so incompetent as to fail to make that distinction, then nothing whatsoever JUST could ever come of the courts; and government itself would not only cease to exist, but the word JUSTICE would have no meaning at all...
...without the distinction between what is a CRIME and what is not; a distinction removed even further, when the thing in question is admitted to be not even a rules violation.
Let us all consider ourselves lucky, and thankful, that those who write the editorials at The New York Times do not perform the functions of our government
... Raid. Guess who is responsible. Rove/Novak???
With all the huge, big-dollar Republican scandals going on, they're reporting this Reid story endlessly.
The CIA Director resigns under mysterious circumstances, with rumors of prostitutes, drugs, gambling, defense contractor pay-offs, and at the Watergate Hotel no less, but the mainstream media won't touch the story. Duke Cunningham? The mainstream media barely reported it. Jack Abramoff? The mainstream media spun that into a bi-partisan scandal.
It's gotten to the point where I do not trust a SINGLE thing I hear, see, or read in the mainstream media. I found out recently a local TV network news station has been playing paid White House propaganda produced by the government, and failing to inform their viewers that it wasn't real news. We also have a Sinclair Broadcasting station here, which airs Mark Hyman's version of the Two Minute Hate constantly.
of the radio stations that carry hourly "news" carry, you guessed it, fox news.
Google the SOURCES in those stories and email your complaints to THEM.
The disreputable reporters can't write the stories concluding what they strive to conclude if they no longer have willing sources among credible professionals.
Those I've contacted who have replied inform me that the NYT reporter did not give them the full facts before soliciting -- eliciting -- their quotes.
I'm a media insider and have been unable to get any traction in the world of REASON on these stories fueled on orders from the top down -- no matter if there's not even logic to the editorializing in the "news" story in our formerly objective American journalism business.