Las Vegas Review-Journal
19 April 2015
By STEVE TETREAULT
REVIEW-JOURNAL WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON — To most people it seemed curious but
straightforward enough when Sen. Harry Reid said he suffered a serious facial
injury while exercising at home on New Year’s Day. A few days later he
acknowledged the freak accident happened, embarrassingly enough, while he was
working out in his bathroom.
But since the Nevada Democrat announced on March 27 he
would retire from the Senate when his term expires, the right wing of the
Internet and talk radio has had a field day with conjecture about what really
must have happened to him in Henderson over the holiday. […]
Las Vegas Sun
26 April 2015
By Ric Anderson
A Las Vegas man claims he started a false rumor that
the injuries suffered by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid several months ago
were the result of an attack by Reid’s brother, not an exercise accident.
Larry Pfeifer, a 50-year-old former consultant in the
nightclub and entertainment industry, said he fabricated the story after
becoming appalled that right-wing political blogger John Hinderaker published a
rumor that Reid’s injuries stemmed from an assault by a Mafia enforcer. Pfeifer
said he pitched his fake story about the Reid brothers’ supposed fight to
Hinderaker, author of the Power Line blog, to test whether the blogger would
publish it, as well. When Hinderaker reported it and the rumor was subsequently
spread by others in conservative media, Pfeifer says he began plotting to
self-report it as a lie to show the lack of credibility and journalistic
standards among partisan media figures. […]
Huffington Post
28 April 2015
Sam Stein
