Top political commentator Jon Ralston has accused Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun of killing a column he wrote in 2012 to protect his friend, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
On his
Ralston Reports blog, Ralston vilified the Nevada Democrat for outright lying when he declared that 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had not paid his taxes.
"Now that CNN's Dana Bash has found Harry Reid to be unrepentant about his Mitt Romney tax lies, it's finally time to publish a column I wrote contemporaneously with the Nevada senator's McCarthy-like tactic during the 2012 campaign," writes Ralston, Nevada's leading Capitol Hill pundit.
"The column was never published because Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun attempted to protect his friend, Reid, from the criticism. I never wrote for the Sun again."
Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader when Ralston's column was pulled, told Bash this week that he
has no regrets about falsely accusing Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign of failing to pay his taxes.
"I don't regret that at all. No one would help me. They were afraid the Koch brothers would go after them, so I did it on my own," said Reid, adding, "Romney didn't win, did he?"
Ralston, who left the Las Vegas Sun in 2012 and never wrote for the newspaper again, has reprinted his column in his current blog,
according to Politico.
While denouncing Reid for his "ruthless, Machiavellian side" in the column, Ralston called out the senator for crossing the line with his "shameless" accusation against Romney.
"I don't think anyone – the Senate majority leader or lesser beings – should be able to make unsupportable statements about how much Romney has paid, simply to pressure him to release more information," wrote Ralston in 2012.
"As a public figure who had had to endure vicious and often tenuous allegations – in the 1970s, he was even linked to organized crime after a mobster boasted of having him in his pocket – you would think Reid would be more sensitive to such tactics. I have an extremely credible source who says he is not.
"I suppose it's possible that someday we may learn Romney did not pay taxes for 10 years – although I highly doubt it considering the presumptive GOP nominee's vehement denials. But even that would not justify Reid's grotesque rumormongering."
Ralston's 2012 column concluded by saying, "it's one thing to use every trick in the book to win a campaign or to carelessly spout invective about other public figures.
"But it's quite another thing for one of the most powerful Democrats in the country to make serious assertions about a Republican presidential candidate, without any proof and without a named source.
"Sometimes the ends do not justify the means, even in the political swamp. Someone needs to draw the line for Reid since he is so unable to draw one for himself."
Following a serious eye injury from a fall, Reid announced last week that he will be retiring from the Senate when his current term ends in January 2017.
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