If indeed the administration of President George W. Bush was trying to change the subject from the indictment of vice-presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, it looks like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has managed to change it back. Reid’s invoking a rare closed session on Wednesday drew attention away from the announcement of federal Judge Samuel Alito’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination and Bush’s bird flu news conference back to the core issue: Libby.

But, as Reid said, Libby is but the tip of the iceberg, a doorway through which to enter the true story: Were Americans deliberately lied to during the run-up to war? Libby acted, after all, to silence administration critic and former ambassador Joe Wilson, who was hammering away at the infamous lie about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger to re-start a nuclear weapons program that simply did not exist.

“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared challenge its actions,” Reid said before making the closed-door motion.

And, let us not forget, Libby was one of the key backers for war, part of the White House cabal intent on selling and defending the conflict. He was also part of neoconservative circles that had long wanted to use Iraq to change the Middle East’s political landscape.

Yes, Reid’s action definitely opened some eyes, even if it did irritate Republicans who apparently have been sitting on the second part of an investigation that may prove harmful to the Bush administration. Although they claim they were about to finish their inquiry, it took Reid shutting down the Senate to get a firm, on-the-record commitment.

When is the last time the Senate went into a rare, closed-door, secret session? Not since the heady days of the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, who had lied during an inquiry into whether he got a blow job at the White House.

You know, we at Various Things & Stuff can’t help but marvel at the problems faced by the two presidents, Clinton and Bush. Republicans hated Clinton and dogged him during his eight years in office (which he won, by the way, in elections free of allegations of fraud). They impeached him because he’d lied during an investigation of his sex life.

Meanwhile, Bush sent the nation to war on the basis of intelligence that we now know was false. What we don’t know, and what Reid was trying to learn on Wednesday, was whether that intelligence was cooked, whether the administration chose to believe what it wanted to believe, rather than the facts, and whether the war was, in fact, a preordained priority of the administration. And more than 2,000 American service members have died in that war, let us not forget.

In retrospect, Clinton’s crime seems small, petty and almost irrelevant in comparison.

We wonder why, aside from simple partisan loyalty, Republicans are not more upset at Bush. They are supposed to be the party that’s strong on defense, pro-military and better at keeping the nation’s secrets. Yet there is no outcry, no talk of impeachment, and seemingly no anger.

Where, we wonder, is our own U.S. Sen. John Ensign? Back in Sept. 1998, Ensign called on Clinton to resign from office rather than face impeachment because of the way he’d misled people about the most infamous blow job ever.

“Think about it. He [Clinton] sent taxpayer-paid staff out to lie for him, and that is a misuse of office,” Ensign told the Review-Journal at the time.

Well, senator, it looks like another president has sent taxpayer-paid staff out to lie for him (they claimed or implied that Iraq was connected to al Qaida and Sept. 11; they claimed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear program; former Secretary of State Colin Powell, though he had doubts, told the United Nations Security Council about a long list of fake WMDs; and Bush himself claimed we’d found the weapons of mass destruction).

To quote one of your own, “where’s the outrage?” And if it is a misuse of office worthy of resignation or impeachment to lie about a blow job, how in the hell is it not a misuse of office to take the country to war under false pretenses?

Senator?

Pardon us, Mr. Mayor, but we disagree.

Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, at that Chamber of Commerce forum for government candidates that we joked about Tuesday, defended the Las Vegas Monorail, were he used to work as a board member and, eventually, CEO. He left under a cloud earlier this year, after enduring shutdown after shutdown due to mechanical problems.

Trying to correct state Sen. Bob Beers, Gibson said the monorail “does not cost the taxpayers a dime.”

Hold on there, Mr. Mayor! The monorail has evaded millions of dollars in property and sales taxes over the years by claiming to operate as a charity, in that it offers a service that government is required to provide. The Nevada Tax Commission is now re-examining that decision.

By not paying the taxes that other transportation companies pay — think taxis and limos, which also provide transportation in and around the resort corridor — the monorail is, in fact, costing taxpayers.

In fact, the only tax the monorail does pay is a franchise fee to Clark County — $50,000 per year. That’s hardly compensation for the months that streets like Spring Mountain and Paradise roads were out of commission and local drivers had to wait in gridlock while monorail support pillars were erected.

Moreover, Gibson added, “It looks as though the monorail, the 4.3-mile system, will be able to take care of itself completely.”

Hold on again, Mr. Mayor! We know that monorail founders promised us 50,000 riders a day, when the actual number is under 30,000. Even with one-way fares at $3, it’s barely bringing in enough money to cover its operations and maintenance. But it’s not paying down millions in debt, in the form of tax-free bonds issued by the state for this allegedly “private” project. The new CEO tells us that there are only about three years worth of reserves left to make debt payments. After that, it’s not looking good at all.

Wait, shouldn’t Gibson know this? After all, he was CEO.

Hmm…

Speaking of the monorail, the Clark County Commission approved a feasibility study on Tuesday that will study whether and how to bring the monorail out to McCarran International Airport. The study will examine the route, where to put stations, the cost and estimate how many people will ride the train.

Oh, those rascally anti-tax Republicans. They teased us so, by waiting to see the outcome of the vote in Colorado on Tuesday about whether to suspend the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), with the clear implication that if it failed, they’d back off their push to pass a very similar measure here in Nevada, which has been dubbed Tax and Spending Control, or TASC.

Well, TABOR went down, 52 percent to 48 percent, as taxpayers in Colorado decided they’d rather have the government services in health care, education and road building instead of an estimated $3.7 billion in tax rebates over the next five years. (TABOR requires the state to refund surplus tax money to taxpayers.)

So, has anyone in Nevada learned a lesson?

Hell, no. They’re going to do it anyway, proving that the TASC counter-slogan, “Colorado’s Trash is Nevada’s Treasure,” is perfectly right on. (Credit us at Various Things & Stuff for coming up with that one. We’re a damn idea factory over here!)

“In the final analysis, TABOR works. It is highly unlikely what happened in Colorado would happen in Nevada,” said state Sen. Bob Beers, whose gubernatorial candidacy is based in large part on cutting taxes and thus, government.

Actually, in the final analysis, 52 percent of Colorado voters — the people who are supposed to be in charge, after all — said TABOR didn’t work. People like Laura Manuel, an employee of the Metropolitan State College in Denver, who told the Associated Press “People want a free lunch. They want roads and sidewalks, but don’t want to pay for it.” So true.

But the difference is, TABOR showed Colorado voters in stark relief what happens when you cut taxes: Services that you rely on for life go wanting. Given the choice, they chose government. But in order to get there, they had to ensure an economic downturn and lagging services brought on by TABOR for which their little refund checks were a sorry salve.

What those voters know — and what Beers hopes you don’t realize — is that sometimes, the government spends your money more effectively than you do, on things that make our state better for everybody. As Joni Mitchell reminds us, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. So let’s all tell the Tax and Spending Control folks that we don’t need to go through what Colorado did; we can tell them to hop a big yellow taxi out of town right now.