Political Infighting Destroys Online Poker Legalisation

Sunday September 23,2012 : HAS POLITICAL INFIGHTING DESTROYED CHANCES FOR ONLINE POKER LEGALISATION? (Update)
 
Reid chief of staff just made the political bickering more acrimonious
 
It's looking increasingly unlikely that the Kyl-Reid online poker legalization bill will make progress this year as the main actors in this drama turn increasingly to political bickering and face-saving rather than guiding the measure through Congress in a professional and collaborative manner.
 
Last Friday the situation took a turn for the worse when Sen. Harry Reid's chief-of-staff, David Krone, organised an hour-long briefing for Washington reporters, clearly with the objective of deflecting any blame from his boss.
 
"I am not going to let (Senator) Dean Heller go out there and call Harry Reid a liar, which is essentially what he is doing," Krone said, producing documents and emails to support his argument that the increasingly slim chances of the bill getting through in this session was not the fault of Sen. Reid.
 
His counterpart in Sen. Heller's office, Stewart Bybee said: "It is unfortunate that this issue which is so important to the state of Nevada has come down to false accusations and finger pointing."
 
The Las Vegas Review-Journal was present at the briefing and comments that aides to the warring senators acknowledge the feud has crippled chances to pass an online gaming bill in a post-election lame duck session in November and December.
 
The political wheeling and dealing on the bill, along with the recriminations and criticism of recent weeks, are fully covered in an overview of the current situation here:
 
http://www.lvrj.com/news/top-aide-defends-reid-on-online-poker-170800516.html