We at Various Things & Stuff were more than a little surprised at our friend and fellow blogger Dave Berns’ column in the Las Vegas Business Press this week. You’ll see why as we quote from, and comment on, the piece.

“I believe President [George W.] Bush and Vice President [Dick] Cheney are good men who wish to right the wrongs of society. I may not agree with their approach to individual problems, but at their core I believe they are sincere, caring people,” Berns wrote.

Now, we happen to like Berns, who worked just two offices down from us when he was helming the Business Press, before moving recently to KNRP to replace host Gwen Castaldi on the station’s flagship show, State of Nevada. But let us ask a couple of questions:

What does it mean that Bush and Cheney are “good men” who are “sincere, caring people”? We don’t judge people based on our subjective opinion of their “core.” We judge them by their actions. And, frankly, by that standard, Bush and Cheney have caused some of the wrongs of society, not solved them.

We learned from the Review-Journal this weekend that Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury had written a nice letter on behalf of former Commissioner Lance Malone, whose post-political life included service as a bagman for strip club owner (and confessed influence peddler) Mike Galardi.

Now, Woodbury (and 27 other people who wrote letters on Malone’s behalf, urging a federal judge to be lenient in sentencing Malone) can point out all the good qualities Malone has, but at the end of the day, the guy is still a bribe-toting bagman for a strip club mogul. It’s not all he is, but it’s undeniable that he’s that, too.

That paragraph frankly reminded us of former President Bill Clinton’s insipid remark at the dedication of his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. Said Clinton: “Am I the only one who likes both George Bush and John Kerry, who thinks that they just view the world differently?”

Yes, Mr. President. You are the only one.

Berns continues: “That [the fact that Bush and Cheney are good-hearted people] may not come through in the harsh echo chamber of daily news coverage, which portrays a simplistic, contentious world of right and wrong, But in their most private moments, Bush and Cheney are likely the sort of people you would be proud to call friends, colleagues and mentors.”

Not being privy to the most private moments of Bush and Cheney, we have no idea if our friend Dave is right. (Then again, he has no idea if he’s right, either.) But we’re fairly certain that, given the chance to make close acquaintance with either man, we wouldn’t be friends. In fact, we’re sure Bush would zing us with his favorite moniker, once deployed against New York Times reporter Adam Clymer: “Major-league asshole.” And Cheney would no doubt tell us to go fuck ourselves, the way he did to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy. Mentors, indeed.

We confess to being a local part of the echo chamber that Berns mentions, constantly harping on the wrongs that we see perpetuated by the allegedly good-hearted Bush administration. (We won’t do the whole list, but let’s just start with an unnecessary war and a death toll of more than 2,000 American service members; a loss of respect among our allies abroad; deficit spending that squandered a rare budget surplus; tax cuts delivered to the people who need them the least; and oft-repeated lies to the American people, like Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida and connected to Sept. 11.)

And there goes the echo chamber again. But what are we supposed to do? Paper over what we see as despicable actions of the administration with questionable assurances that Bush and Cheney are “good men,” when there’s ample evidence to the contrary? The fact is, things really do come down to right and wrong, true and false, good and bad. And part of a journalists’ job is to gather the facts and make those calls. (You readers, as always, are free to disagree. That’s why we welcome comments to these blogs.)

Now, if Berns was trying to say that in politics, we’re too quick to demonize our opponents as evil men and too quick to sanctify our heroes, he may have a point. Very few people are all bad, or all good; most politicians are flawed people trying to do what they see as right despite their shortcomings. But that does not mean that what Bush and Cheney think is right actually is right. War, lying to make your case and giving tax relief to the rich are not right, no matter who thinks they are. (And with that, we at Various Things & Stuff have proved that not all liberals are moral relativists!)

To be fair, Berns’ column goes on to note that Bush and Cheney “are seemingly enamored of the shiny allure of power, money and influence.” He questions whether Bush and Cheney would have supported the late Rosa Parks and the thousands of others who boycotted the Montgomery bus system in the civil rights era, or if they would have been on the side of “the city’s ruling elite.”

“For that matter, where would Bush and Cheney have stood in the first half of the 20th century when Congress created the Social Security program and adopted unemployment protection, child labor laws, food and drug protections, the five-day work week, the G.I. Bill, assistance for poor and hungry children?”

The implication: They would have opposed those things. (And there’s no need to pussyfoot around the question: Bush has tried to partially privatize Social Security and prohibit Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.)

Alas, this undercuts completely Berns’ original statement that Bush and Cheney are good men who wish to right the wrongs of society. What good person could have conscienced the oppression of segregation, or condoned the plague of poverty and joblessness of the Great Depression?

“George Bush and Dick Cheney aren’t bad people. Journalists, commentators, political opponents and average folks do them a disservice when they imply otherwise. But these are men who revere power, influence and money,” Berns concludes.

How, we wonder, can a man who reveres power, influence and money be good?

And as to this business of doing Bush and Cheney a disservice by implying they are bad people, we must protest. Unlike our friend Dave, we make no assumptions about whether Bush and Cheney are good people or bad people at heart; we simply try to tell the truth about what they’ve done, and draw our conclusions from that.

And sometimes, the truth is simply that Bush was wrong, and disaster has flowed from his bad calls (going to war in Iraq; appointing Michael “Brownie” Brown director of FEMA; pursuing tax cuts while spending big on the Iraq war, resulting in huge deficits; naming Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to positions wherein they could treasonously leak classified information in order to smear a political opponent, just to name a few).

Let’s bring it home: We at Various Things & Stuff don’t think our friend Dave is a bad person. But that’s irrelevant to us when we evaluate what he’s written, which we think is wrong. Are we demonizing him in the blogosphere by pointing that out, or are we just telling the truth as we see it? It’s got to be the latter.

It’s tempting to jump all over the latest revelations in the case of golf course developer Bill Walters. Just one day after the Las Vegas City Council — led by Mayor Oscar Goodman — handed Walters yet another huge gift of public funds, we learn that he may have benefited from felonious acts allegedly committed by the city’s former Director of Public Works, Richard Goecke.

Remember, Walters agreed to build a golf course, dubbed Royal Links, on land he leased from the city near its sewage treatment plant, which actually lies in Clark County territory. Walters bought the land for well below market value in 1999, with the stipulation that it only be used as a golf course, intended to be a buffer between the sewage treatment plant and homes.

It is here that a recent Metro Police investigation found that “there were some very questionable acts by Goecke” that favored Walters and were detrimental to other bidders on the land, according to the Review-Journal’s exclusive, copyrighted report. “If these acts had been investigated at the time of occurrence, felony criminal charges would have been submitted to the District Attorney’s office for review,” a Metro Police report says, according to the R-J. The cost of those detrimental acts to taxpayers? Millions of dollars, according to Metro.

Of course, we all know what happened next: Walters sought to have the deed restriction removed, so he could build homes on the site. And instead of paying the city the value of the unrestricted land in 2005 (which ranged from $35.6 million to $55.7 million, according to estimates quoted in the R-J) he paid $7.2 million, the value of the unrestricted land in 1999, plus 6 percent interest per year to the present day.

And, to make matters worse, City Manager Doug Selby said there was nothing the city could do: “Given it’s beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution, I’m not sure what benefit would come from further investigation,” he told the R-J.

Well, let’s see now: The city may have lost millions in a potentially felonious deal due to the allegedly criminal misbehavior of one of its employees in 1999, but instead of investigating and putting things on hold, they gave yet another questionable sweetheart deal to Walters on land that, perhaps, he shouldn’t even have owned in the first place? Only in fucking Las Vegas, baby.

Clearly, the council should rescind its vote to lift the deed restrictions until the matter is fully vetted. And here’s where our concerns arise:

• Concern No. 1: We still don’t know what — specifically — we’re talking about. A supplemental Metro Police memo detailing the alleged criminal acts, as well as a July 22 memo from Deputy City Attorney John Redlein, have thus far been withheld by the city. The public — to say nothing of Walters and Goecke — need to see those documents immediately in order to sort out what went on.

• Concern No. 2: Selby says he never saw Redlein’s July 22 memo or the Metro Police report (until the day after the vote, that is). Should such a breathtakingly underinformed person be at the helm of the multi-million-dollar city? And should Goodman, who prefers to surround himself with weak, pliable people, bear some blame?

Moreover, Goodman said on the day of the vote that he’d been told by Selby that there would be no criminal charges related to Royal Links and Walters. How did Selby know that? Had he, in fact, seen the report that he says he didn’t see until Thursday? Or had he simply been briefed on its contents? If he’d been briefed on its contents, why didn’t he tell the council about Metro’s discovery of felonies allegedly committed by Goecke in the past? If he had, would it have changed the outcome of the vote?

• Concern No. 2: The timing. The Metro report was released one day after the council’s action. Why? Who deciding on that timing? At least one member of the council — Steve Wolfson — said the council should reconsider in light of the report. Again, if the report had been released Wednesday instead of Thursday, it seems the vote might have come out differently.

• Concern No. 3: Metro and Walters have long had a very adversarial relationship. He’s been investigated for sports betting violations, and the police department once seized more than $2 million from him despite the fact that he was never convicted of anything. The history makes ascertaining the truth of the charges against Walters — regardless of whether the statute of limitations has expired or not — all the more important.

Walters has benefited from his good relations with politicians for years, winning lots of highly questionable favors. He says he’s done nothing unethical; now we have a report that alleges differently. The court of public opinion has no statute of limitations. If he did do something wrong, all local governments need to reevaluate their dealings with him, both past and future. If he didn’t do anything wrong, his name needs to be cleared.

So, let’s get those documents and see what really went on.