Pounding Dirty Harry Reid
Michelle Malkin

Lo and behold, a few in the MSM are coming down hard on Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) for his failure to disclose real estate deal profits. It's good to see major newspaper editorial boards taking on the Democratic culture of corruption. Check 'em out:

Washington Post editorial page...

THE BEST CASE for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is that he was sloppy about financial disclosure rules in accounting for a real estate deal on which he made a $700,000 profit. The more unattractive case is that the senator's inaccurate description of the investment was an effort to disguise his partnership with a Las Vegas lawyer who's never been charged with wrongdoing but whose name has surfaced in federal investigations involving organized crime, casinos and political bribery since the 1980s. ...

Philly Inquirer editorial page...

... "Americans have been shocked and even disgusted by revelations of corruption in our current system by Republican lobbyists, senior Bush Administration officials, members of Congress, and former congressional staff," Reid said in March. "The scandals have shown that some outsiders and insiders believed they could act with impunity."

That's how this case looks, too. Unless Reid comes up with a better explanation for this lack of disclosure, Democrats should not keep him as their leader in the new Congress in 2007.

Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial page...

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid would be well advised to stop thundering about corruption in the Republican ranks or crying "cover-up" over the GOP's failure to promptly and appropriately deal with former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and his sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages. Reid faces too many questions about his own behavior to crusade against the misdeeds of others...

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Reid's Interventions And Family Connections, 2003 Edition
Ed Morrissey

I spent most of the evening last night performing some research into the various machinations of the Harry Reid real-estate transactions that netted him a 175% return on his initial $400,000 investment, and the manner in which he hid his partnership with Jay Brown from the Senate. In this research, I discovered a Los Angeles Times article from June 2003 that outlines a lot of the structure that appears to have allowed Reid to ensure his success in his real-estate ventures. Not surprisingly, it shows Reid and his family at the center of efforts to promote developments that benefitted Reid and his cronies: ...

Was Patrick Lane Development In Rory Reid's District?
Ed Morrissey

Earlier this morning I wrote about Rory Reid, Harry Reid's son, and his position on the Clark County Board of Commissioners around the same time that his father's Patrick Lane LLC benefited from a zoning change that allowed commercial/retail development of their parcels. It turns out that the district Rory represents includes Patrick Lane, and the Las Vegas Review Journal noted that in an October 2004 article on the development of a new Wal-Mart. This comes from Lexis-Nexis and has no link, but the article is dated October 5, 2004 ...

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The Reid Influence

So the Reid corruption scandal is starting to explode. First there is this report by the WaPo which details much more then just non-disclosure of financial dealings. No, we’re talking influence peddling:

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Ok, so Reid bought the land only after a land swap deal was made by Del Webb so that the corner property could be included. No big deal right?

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Wrong! So Reid actively worked on behalf of Del Webb to get the land transfer done, while getting some hefty political donations in the meantime, and once the land transfer was done Reid brought the land.

And then we have the land itself. The land was zoned for residential property only….so what in the world would Reid do? ...