The details surrounding the Las Vegas land deal of Minority Leader Harry Reid that exploded onto the scene Tuesday afternoon may or may not turn out to be unethical. The most fascinating part of the story so far, at least to me, is the one that's been least commented on: the hang up.

Hang ups come in a few different varieties. There's the accidental "I had the phone pinched between my shoulder and my ear and hit the wrong button" hang up, and there's also the "I'm so enraged I can't stand it any more" slam the phone down hang up.

Harry's hang up was different. It was an "I'm above answering these questions from you" type of hang up, and one that could be fairly characterized as a bizarre mixture of petulance and contempt.

Let's assume for the moment that the land deal is exactly what Harry Reid says it is: a simple, straightforward, perfectly legal transaction that is being misreported or blown out of proportion. Why on earth wouldn't Reid simply state as much for the record? He could have said "we've been over all this before," or he could have said "you are way off base." Heck, he could have said just about anything. Instead, Reid hung up.

If you believe actions speak louder than words, what are we to make of the fact that the most powerful elected Democratic official in the country feels like he can just hang up in the middle of a tape recorded interview with the largest news syndicate in America?