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Katherine Harris uncorked

In her latest official statement to the news media, U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris says she never removed the cork from the bottle. No wonder her campaign is not breathing.

The Harris statement, issued Friday, follows an Orlando Sentinel story revealing that congresswoman Harris shared a $2,800 meal in a swank Washington restaurant last year with defense contractor Mitchell Wade. He previously had handed her 16 $2,000 campaign checks. Shortly after the dinner, she requested a $10-million federal appropriation for a Wade project. Wade, not incidentally, pleaded guilty in February to bribery and election fraud related mostly to former California congressman Duke Cunningham.

"The night of our dinner," Harris wrote in her statement, "Mr. Wade purchased several expensive bottles of wine which he took home with him uncorked. This is apparently the reason the bill was so high."

Apparently.

Harris' "statements" have become the comic relief in a campaign that is unfolding like a slow-motion Republican tragedy. This one is no exception. To appreciate its bitter charm, one has to place it in full context.

After Harris was revealed to be "Representative B" in a federal prosecutor's plea agreement with Wade, she refused to comment. But her campaign spokeswoman assured reporters that "she pays for her own dinner when she goes out with lobbyists." Oops. When a Sentinel reporter caught up with her last week, the story changed. Harris said her campaign had "reimbursed" the restaurant. Asked how a restaurant could be reimbursed for a meal tab Wade already had paid, she walked off. Her campaign later asked the reporter not to publish what Harris had said, and instead issued the statement that changed the story yet again.

Harris is now back in hiding again, hoping that a $100 donation to a Florida charity will spur reporters to change the subject. But U.S. House ethics rules, which her statement called "complicated," are quite clear. House members are forbidden from accepting gifts worth $50 or more, or any "favors or benefits in circumstances that might create the appearance of influencing the performance of official duties."

The wine, by the way, may well have been of the $1,000-a-bottle French Bordeaux variety, reportedly one of Wade's favorites. But the restaurant maitre d' told the Times that its liquor license prohibits patrons from taking home any bottle. Maybe Harris will uncork a little more of the truth in her next statement.

[Last modified April 25, 2006, 01:07:12]