Posted by
arandomguy on Friday, October 13, 2006 12:06:22 AM
Harry Reid is apparently caught up in an interesting scandal. The Senate Ethics committee is investigating him, and whether he failed to properly account for some interesting business deals - deals that allowed him to make $1.1 million windfall profits on property he doesn't even own.
Again, I do not see how there can be two sides to this story. Harry Reid got money from a property he doesn't own - essentially a gift of 1.1 million dollars. Then, he fails to report it properly. This is a mistake on his part, no question about it.
Reid reported the 2004 sale of the land as a personal sale, never mentioning the fact that he had sold the same piece of land for $400,000 in 2001. Furthermore, the deal was brokered by Jay Brown, an ex-casino lawyer whose name has surfaced this summer in congressional bribery investigations and ties to organized crime.
First off, why does Reid have any contact with these people? Secondly, why is he making money off property he doesn't own? Why can't I do that? I want to just make random millions off property I haven't owned for 3 years. It makes no sense - why is an investigation needed. There is simply no excuse for his behavior.
Now I'm not calling for Reid's resignation. He's an annoyance to be sure. He's a far-left partisan hack, and he's wrong on almost every issue. And now we see he's corrupt. But if we had him resign, how much of Washington would go with him? Who ISN'T corrupt? That's the bigger question. Now I'm also not buying into these theories that all politicians are evil.
In fact, I wouldn't even bring up this mess with Reid if it weren't for the Democrats and the left's insistence on dragging the Foley issue out over weeks until the election. I really don't care about either Foley or Reid. It's irrelevant. I care about the war on terror, and policies that help to win it. Yes, some senators and representatives are corrupt. The Representative is even a sick man. He resigned, and he's under investigation that's good enough for me. Reid is also under investigation - again, good enough for me. I don't personally care.
Except that the Democrats continue to bring up Foley. So the Republicans must not only counter with actual issues, we must counter with the Reid mess, because the Democrats will be absolutely scared to comment on the issue. You don't see them demanding Reid's resignation - even though Republicans forced Foley to resign.
I tell you, I would rather see the parties argue about the issues that are important to this country - like a nuclear armed North Korea, and how best to win the war on terrorism. All this nonsense about Foley and Reid is just headache producing, and it doesn't accomplish anything.