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Washington Post Money and Politics reporter John Solomon was online Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest news in politics.

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Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: Maybe it's different inside the Grand Ring Road there in D.C. but out here in America, I don't see much coverage of the Libby trial. Is that because it's been to now boring jury picks? The President hogging the news with his SOTU speech tonight? The urge to surge gripping the last diehards on Iraq? Something else? It's not on C-SPAN or TV because the courtroom belongs to the presiding judge not to the American people -- could that be the most important reason this first and only trial re: Iraq is getting little attention?Justice invisible is justice denied. Thanks much.

John Solomon: The jury selection dragged on for a week and it is not surprising for that process to be a back-page news story -- even with a trial of this magnitude. Still, major media like The Post have already devoted front-page space to the issues the trial will raise, from Vice President Cheney's expected testimony to the role of journalists as key witnesses. I'm confident this trial will get the extensive attention it deserves from the media. There's lot of important issues at the heart of this case -- the First Amendment, political credibility and the safety of intelligence assets.

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Asked Without Malice: What does it mean to be The Post's "Money and Politics" Reporter? A political reporter by necessity reports about money; the two are inseparable. How and why is your job different?

John Solomon: A good question. When I first came to town back in 1991, my very first mentor said this to me: Follow the money and you'll know what makes this town's heart beat. Every good reporter here follows the money trail regardless of their assigned coverage area. You can't cover Medicare prescription drug policy without examining the role of drug company donations in Congress. My job is to help readers understand on a daily basis how the process of raising and spending money works inside the campaigns and to look for issues, conflicts and new tactics that might interest readers and illuminate the role money continues to play at the start of the 21st century. But as my talented colleagues have already shown, it's hardly a monopoly!

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Washington: A quick question about the Edwards story -- leaving aside the politics for a moment, wouldn't it have been against D.C. law for Edwards to refuse the sale? I didn't think you were allowed to accept or reject a sale for political reasons, and I was wondering why this wasn't mentioned in the story (if true).

John Solomon: Thanks for this question. Certainly there's been lots of discussion in the blogs about this story and let me try to address the core issue. This wasn't a story about whether John Edwards should or shouldn't have picked the Klaassens as buyers. It was a story about the transparency of the deal. Those who aspire to the highest office in the land are required to disclose their financial dealings to the fullest extent. That isn't a political requirement or some media-driven imposition. It is encoded in the federal campaign law. When Edwards' campaign first disclosed the deal, much detail was lacking about the deal -- most importantly the name of the buyers. Such information is critical to the transparency of a transaction involving $5.2 million that occurred on the night before Edwards launched his candidacy. Our story simply filled in the missing blanks.

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South Burlington, Vt.: Any second thoughts on your Edwards' house sale story? Even your own ombudsman wants to know "where's the beef?"

John Solomon: I have no regrets at all about the story or its play in The Post. I would have written it the same way and reported it the same way -- whether it was a Republican or Democrat or independent. Highlighting who political leaders do business with is an essential role for journalists. A front-page story doesn't have to always find wrongdoing or lead to prosecutions. It can simply illuminate how a candidate chose to address a basic requirement of his campaign -- achieving transparency on his or her financial dealings. And Edwards has hardly been singled out. Newspapers have given front-page examination to numerous real estate transactions in the last year from Obama and Cunningham to Reid and Hastert.

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Vienna, Va.: Could you offer your insight on the Dems' choice of Jim Webb for their response to the SOTU address? I would have thought they would have chosen someone with a little more Senate experience. Does the fact that he has a son serving in the military give his response more gravity?

John Solomon: While new to the Senate, Jim Webb was a standard-bearer of the Democrats anti-Iraq policy message in the last election. He tapped voters' deep unrest to unseat a Republican incumbent that many thought at the start of 2006 was safe. His message worked for the election and likely makes it appealing for the Senate Democratic leadership at this moment. And yes, Sen. Webb's son service in Iraq now -- as well as his own prior service to his country -- add a personal element to his response that I'm sure Democrats hope will have some political effect.

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Washington: Are you saying that federal campaign law required Edwards to disclose more information than he did about his home sale? And now that your story has filled in the "missing blanks" regarding Edwards' home sale, what has changed about your understanding of the deal?

John Solomon: Sen. Edwards hasn't filed his financial disclosure form yet. He still has some time to do that. That's where he'll fulfill his legal obligation. There are very specific and technical rules for how to handle everything from stock transactions to house sales. My point was simply that the laws that govern presidential candidates are steeped in an well-grounded expectation that candidates give voters as much information as possible to make informed decisions about a candidate's business and financial dealings. Once again, Sen. Edwards doesn't have to break a law or even do something wrong to ask and answer these very basic questions.

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Avon Park, Fla.: People keep making a big deal of the fact that Hillary Clinton leads Democrats in national polls. But aren't they forgetting that the primaries are state-by-state contests? She's behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bill Richardson and John Edwards have strong potential in Nevada. If she doesn't win any of those states, she's not the front-runner anymore.

John Solomon: It's a long time before the first vote is cast, and much can happen between now and then. Sen. Clinton certainly has some advantages -- name recognition and a well-oiled fundraising machine among them. But George Bush had similar at the start of the 2000 campaign and then got tripped up by John McCain in the New Hampshire primary, transforming a race some predicted would be a coronation into a real competition. One of the first tests for Sen. Clinton's challengers will be how much money they can raise by this summer. There may be some surprises.

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Great Neck, N.Y.: According to a piece in the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton's advisors discussed her online chats as a way to "humanize" her. Don't you think that's an odd characterization for her staff to make? It seems like they're admitting that she not fully "human," to use their word.

washingtonpost.com: Clinton Dives in Media Waters; Efforts to 'Humanize' Presidential Hopeful Fast Underway (Post, Jan. 23)

John Solomon: I'm not sure how an online chat humanizes a person. More likely, chats and Web videos and other Internet tactics that the candidates are increasingly using make them more accessible. There's an entire generation of voters who grew up in the Internet era and for whom chatting and Web video conferencing is second nature. An online chat with Sen. Clinton makes her accessible to them in a forum they feel comfortable with. And there's another reason Obama and Clinton and other candidates embrace the communication capabilities of the Web -- it allows them to get their message to the masses without the tradition filtering of the news media.

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Annapolis, Md.: Generally speaking, what was the source of your leads for the Reid and Edwards pieces? Were they GOP originated?

John Solomon: Sometimes reporters can't discuss the sources or origins of their stories. But that isn't the case for either the Reid or Edwards stories. As I reported in the Reid land deal story I wrote for AP, I was tipped to the transaction by a person inside Reid's own camp. This person made an offhand remark about being concerned about the way the deal had been accounted for on the disclosure form. That is how I got started. On Edwards, I had written a 2003 story about his failed sale of a home to the Saudis' U.S. lobbyist. When I saw a Style section blurb that the Edwards had sold another home, I simply set out to learn who the buyer was. The Edwards campaign's first answer to my question was that it was a corporation whose name they didn't know. The second answer was that they checked the deed and the name of the company was the LLC but the Edwards intentionally didn't want to know the name of the buyers. When we learned the identity of the buyers, the campaign then acknowledged Sen. Edwards had in fact been told their names.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Is Corporate America becoming more liberal? It looks that way. For example when that Pentagon lawyer criticized big law firms for representing Gitmo detainees he expected corporations to pressure firms to drop the detainees. Instead the corporations issued statements supporting the firms. Corporations have also increasingly embraced diversity and environmental issues. If you agree, do you see it affecting the traditional money advantage Republicans have enjoyed in politics?

John Solomon: Corporate America is hardly monolithic. There are execs who are major Republicans and others who are loyal Democrats, and their donation patterns reflect this. But most often, corporate PACs and lobbyists are pragmatic. They hedge their bets by donating to both parties. And when one party appears to be rising, these forces often embrace issues important to that party and alter their donations to reflect the trend. Throughout 2006, we saw a trending of donations toward Democrats as the popularity of President Bush and the GOP Congress waned. And since the election, PACs have donated lots more to Democrats they may have ignored before. Still, Republicans have their own very loyal sources of money that will continue to flow. I had a story in today's paper showing how Newt Gingrich's new political group collected a $1 million check after the election from a casino executive.

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Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.: Do you have any word on what George Tenet's book will say? Will he blame Dr. Rice for 9/11? Is he going to endorse Richard Clarke's critique of the White House?

John Solomon: I honestly don't know what Tenet's book will eventually say, but there's no doubt his perspective will be most interesting. He was the lone holdover from the Clinton administration to transition into a senior job with President Bush. He presided over the intelligence community during a period of deep failures that stemmed across administrations and party lines. He also started some of the transformations that continue since he left.

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John Solomon: Thanks for all the great questions. Look forward to chatting again in the future. There should be some interesting developments over the next few weeks in the race to raise presidential money.

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