Solomon has new target, old tactics

January 19, 2007

Several months ago, John Solomon wrote a series of odd and misleading articles attacking Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), accusing him of ethical lapses. The closer one looked at the criticisms, the weaker the charges looked. Months later, Reid was cleared of any wrongdoing, while Solomon was inexplicably rewarded — in December he took over the Washington Post’s investigative unit joined the Washington Post’s national desk, where he’ll head up some sort of investigative “team.”

Today, we see the results of Solomon’s first investigative piece. It’s an inauspicious start for his career at the Post.

When former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally succeeded last month in selling his imposing Georgetown mansion for $5.2 million after it had languished on the market, the names of the buyers were not publicly disclosed.

At the time, Edwards’s spokeswoman told reporters that the house had been sold to an unidentified corporation. In reality, the buyers were Paul and Terry Klaassen, according to several sources and confirmed by Edwards’s spokeswoman yesterday.

The wealthy founders of the nation’s largest assisted-living housing chain for seniors, the Klaassens are currently cooperating with a government inquiry in connection with accounting practices and stock options exercised by them and other company insiders. They are also the focus of legal complaints by some of the same labor unions whose support Edwards has been assiduously courting for his presidential bid.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the “revelations” from Solomon’s piece.

The Klaassens bought the house, though an Edwards aide said it had been sold to a corporation. As a technical matter, the aide was right, the buyer was a limited-liability corporation, created by the Klaassens, which as the article notes several paragraphs in, is fairly normal. The Klaassens’ names weren’t on the public forms because they used an LLC. None of this is remotely interesting.

Solomon also notes that the Edwards’ sold the home for $1.4 million more than they paid for it four years earlier. That’s true, but that’s pretty normal for real estate in Georgetown. There’s no appearance of wrongdoing here. Indeed, the Edwards sold the house for less than their asking price.

The thrust of the piece seems to be that the buyers are controversial, because they’re under investigation for alleged business wrongdoing. But what does that have to do with Edwards? The presidential candidate has nothing to do with the Klaassens, except he sold them his house for a fair price.

The Klaassens have come under fire from unions, but again, this has nothing to do with Edwards, who has been a union ally.

For the life of me, I have no idea why this is literally front-page news to the Washington Post. Is there some hint of a quid pro quo? Not even a little. Did Edwards change his position on something as a result of the sale of his house? Nope. Was there anything unusual about the actual transaction? Not a thing.

There aren’t even any quotes from Edwards critics, suggesting something untoward about any of this.

Has the WaPo fired all of its editors? Wouldn’t someone on staff read the article first and ask, “Where’s the news in all of this?” And isn’t there anyone who thought this might not be a story appropriate for the front page of one of the nation’s premier news outlets?

It’s going to be a long presidential campaign, isn’t it.

Remember, John Solomon was hired after his Reid hit pieces. They knew the quality of work he did. He was promoted BECAUSE of it.

This is precisely the kind of reporting Solomon was hired to do. I’d say he was hired at the request of some folks who need sucking-up to.

  • I guess they are trying to create a Whitewater just in case Edwards is the candidate for president.

    John Solomon is a whore.

  • Like there aren’t enough considerations when one is trying to sell a house – now we have to do background checks on the buyers, even though (once the house is sold) it and they will not be a part of our lives? Huh?

    The Obama thing – which was also a complete non-story – was still one baby step closer to a story than this is: in that case, Obama was getting something (a partial parcel of land he wanted) and choosing to do business with someone. (And let me repeat: still absolutely no indication anything was wrong — Obama wanted more land, the only choice is to buy from the neighbors.) In Edwards’ case, however, how can he control who makes an offer? What did he possibly get out of it (since the price was below asking and appears to be in line with the market)?

    Is the goal of the press really to make it so that no qualified person with any life experience will ever want to hold a public service position in this country?

  • Solomon is no Bernstein. What a weak and misleading piece. Are they really this blind?

    I noticed he tried to create a mental connection by alternating paragraphs about the Klaassens unrelated activites with paragraphs about Edwards. Sleazy journalism. I’ve seen wingnut bloggers with more integrity.

    Plus this is an old worn out story. I think Solomon is deepthroating Republicans.

  • I just find it amusing. The Washington Post has, for quite a while now, been trying to run ‘hit-pieces’ on Democrats, with or without Solofuck. And this is the “worst” stuff they can come up with…

    I mean, damn, BushCo. commits war crimes, violates the Constitution, ignores international treaties, etc. Other Republifucks solicit bribes, murder, and other things.

    And some Democrat sells his house.

    Damn. It would be funny, if only it weren’t so pathetic, and only if there wasn’t the danger that some people will take this at face value.

    Maybe ‘Freedom of the Press’ needs some revision. After all, there shouldn’t be a Right to disseminate willfully misleading materials for public consumption.

  • ml wrote: John Solomon is a whore.

    What does that make the Washington Post if they hired Solomon?

    Katharine Graham must be spining in her grave.

  • No doubt this represents a new “activist” direction for the press and the media. Now that the Repugs are out of favor, investigations will now be in vogue as many of our courageous journalists waken from their decade-long slumber. Of course, it won’t hurt marketing if they make it a little colorful by adopting a certain Fox/O’Reilly/Beck/Coulter character.

  • Frankly, if it weren’t possible to find some way of attaching controversy to someone paying $5.2 million for a house, I’d be surprised. I notice that they are cooperating with the government in an ‘inquiry’ about stock options and accounting practices, which would describe quite a few corporations lately. Like that nefarious Apple, Inc.

    I must say it was awfully clever of Edwards to figure out how to get money both from the unions AND from the presumptive union exploiter who bought his house! I might that kind of mind working for the United States as President. Do you suppose that was what Solomon was getting at?

  • So if the Washingon Post sells an ad to a company that is being investigated for shady business practices, doesn’t that mean that the WaPo is somehow complicit in those wrongdoings, just as they suggest with Edwards? Holy crap! The sheer number of hit pieces that could be written about the WaPo in this regard would be astronomical!

  • I’d complain by writing something to the WaPo’s Omnbudsmanpieceofshit, but it would only get ignored, or I would only be told how grateful I should be that some Hack is looking into such things.

  • zeitgeist,

    I agree with you on the Edwards “story”. There is no indication of wrongdoing, and unless someone finds that Edwards approached Klaassen and asked for his assistance in unloading a house he was having a hard time selling, or that Klaassen approached Edwards personally and offered to “do him a favor” and “take that house off his hands”, there really isn’t much of a story here.

    I like Obama, and I think he’s probably catching a lot more crap than he deserves for his dealings with Rezko. However, there is more to the Obama story than simply buying land from his neighbor.

    There was a single owner selling 2 parcels of property that were adjacent to each other. One of the parcels had the house on it that Obama wanted. Apparently Obama didn’t want the entire adjacent parcel, he just wanted a piece of it. As a condition of sale, the seller required that the sale of both parcels close on the same day.

    This leaves Obama a few problems. First, he can’t close on the house he wants until someone is willing to purchase the adjacent property. Second, while he waits for someone to purchase the adjacent property he risks losing the oppurtunity to purchase the house to someone who buys both parcels. Third, the person who buys the adjacent property might not want to sell him the piece of it that he wants.

    So, Obama turns to someone with a reputation influence-peddling and who is widely known to be under investigation by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for the same, and. . . .

    Well, actually I haven’t heard any details of exactly what was said in the conversation beyond “Obama acknowledged approaching Rezko about the two properties being up for sale.”

    Rezko and Obama become neighbors by choice as they purchase the adjoining properties, and Rezko then turns around and sells Obama the piece of property he wants.

    The problem isn’t that Obama bought property from his neighbor, it’s that as a politician he turned to someone widely known to be under investigation for influence-peddling who then helped him get something he wanted.

    Obama may not feel he owes Rezko anything in return, and Rezko may not have implied to Obama that he might want something in return. Heck, Rezko may feel that he ended up with a great piece of property and that Obama actually did him a fovor by bringing it to his attention. Still, a politician of national calibre really ought to know better than to turn to someone known to be under investigation for influence-peddling and get involved in such a way that it gives an appearance that the influence-peddler did the politician a favor.

  • Write any Post advertiser and let them know the paper’s horseshit product means you buying anything from any of their advertisers. Then cc: to Donald Graham.

  • This is the second time Solomon has played dumb with the concept of a LLC.

    Last year, his piece criticized Harry Reid for disclosing he owned property which was in fact a held in a LLC (in which Harry Reid was majority shareholder). Now, he’s implying that Edwards was being misleading when he sold the house to a LLC, rather than disclosing who owned the LLC. (which, as a technical matter, he might not have been able to do)

    Last time, I thought he just hadn’t bothered to find out what LLC’s are. Now we know he just doesn’t care.

  • Note to Presidential Candidates, quit making land deals before running. No matter how it’s handled, you are doing to look bad.

    I would not be surprised if in the near future we see someone get seriously setup with one of these deals. And we can all thank the Dukestir for this non-sense.

  • If indeed Mr. Solomon adheres to the principles of lawful profit, right to property, and the pursuit of happiness, (all principles he and his ilk champion day in and day out), the only purpose his “investigative” team seems to meet is smear through guilt by association. Mr. Solomon is a turd, a most hypocritical turd! -Kevo

  • Wouldn’t someone on staff read the article first and ask, “Where’s the news in all of this?” And isn’t there anyone who thought this might not be a story appropriate for the front page of one of the nation’s premier news outlets?

    No, and no.

    This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions (h/t Atrios).

  • The story conveniently bangs the drum of the wealth of John Edwards. The press does not want any potential supporters of Edwards to forget that while he decries “Two America’s,” he definitely resides in the rich and priviledged one. Perhaps this is the real point of the article. Can a man who has a “spare’ house that is worth $5.2 mil really want what is best for working and middle class Americans? And, you know, he’s willling to take money from “the Man.” As memekiller noted, Edwards’ sincerity is cast in a suspicious light. Why DIDN’T he wait until a pro-union millionaire could buy his house. Character assassination by a 1000 cuts? Perhaps. But, you’ve got to put it where the target audience is sure to see it. Front page! Lots of mountains start out as mole hills.

  • The seed has been sown.

    From now on discussions of Edwards in the MSM will include a side comment about his “controversial” home sale — the one where he made “millions”. No explanation of the facts of the sale will be offered by the media (since the wrongdoing is so complex and hard to understand — just like Whitewater). All we need to know is that there was an expose revealing sordid details published the Washington Post.

    The meme will be useful and will be flogged constantly by the talking heads. We can expect to see “Edwards Denies Wrongdoing in Questionable Home Sale” headlines periodically from now on. The next speech he gives on Iraq will probably be covered under the title: “Edwards Continues To Avoid Corruption Questions“.

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