What was with all those blank pages in the Review-Journal’s A-section today? Well, folks, it’s kind of embarrassing, but this was the day they were going to run all our very best columns from our five-year stint as the paper’s top political columnist. (They were to be chosen by Editor Tom Mitchell. He must have forgotten to get around to it.) Anyway, you can still have fun by designing your own news pages, and inserting your own stories. Have fun!

But we’ve got more than just our greatest hits to talk about today! Let’s do some Friday Quick Hits!

• Well, the Republicans have reached the bottom of even their Fear Barrel, and have been forced back to their 1980 campaign playbook: Democrats will raise taxes!

“I’m looking forward to reminding the American people there are significant differences in between what our party believes and what the other party believes. It’s easy to tell us apart,” said President George W. Bush.

(Hmmm, does he mean one party started a war, lied about Saddam Hussein’s connections to al-Qaida, refuses to submit to constitutional congressional oversight and constantly tries to scare the living shit out of America, while the other doesn’t?)

“And the first place you can start is looking at taxes,” Bush added.

(Guess not.)

“There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind where they stand. If they get control of the House of Representatives they’ll raise your taxes,” Bush added.

It’s just so sad to see the Republicans this desperate. Why, by this time in October, they’ll probably be reminding us of the “Red Menace.”

• In another threat to the profession of journalism, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were ordered to jail for defying a court order to confess who’d leaked them grand jury information about baseball slugger Barry Bonds. (They’re free pending appeal.)

The government always likes to say that compelling journalists to testify often is necessary to preserve national security. Well, there’s no national security concerns in this case. And yet two reporters may yet go to jail for doing their jobs.

How does this affect the public? When journalists are jailed for reporting stories, fewer of them will want to do it. And if they comply with court orders and reveal their sources, fewer (if any) sources will want to talk to them. And thus the public is deprived of the kind of storytelling it needs to do its part in our democracy.

Keep that in mind the next time you read the government’s ubiquitous claims of “national security” when it wants to put a reporter in jail, or block a federal shield law.

• It was a classic poolside scene at Caesars Palace Thursday night, as two former speakers of the Assembly — Joe Dini and Richard Perkins — gathered with former Gov. Bob Miller to fete the next speaker, Barbara Buckley.

Buckley didn’t speak long at her event, sponsored by Harrah’s Entertainment, owner of Caesars. She did extol the absent Jan Jones, a former mayor and Harrah’s executive who worked with her on using redevelopment dollars for affordable housing.

Buckley added she couldn’t imagine serving without Perkins, who has had the corner office for the last few sessions.

Other notables who showed up to kiss the ring: Assemblywoman Shiela Leslie, D-Reno; state Sen. Steven Horsford, Assemblymen Kelvin Atkinson, Marcus Conklin, Harry Mortensen and Mark Manendo; Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce, ex-Assemblyman David Goldwater; future Assemblyman Richard Segerblom; and a host of lobbyists.

• And finally today, Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald appeared on Political Insiders, our show on KTNV Channel 13. She answered questions about her residency (she slept at her home in her district Thursday night, and the night before, she said); her nanny (she did nothing wrong by paying her nanny out of campaign funds, but repaid those dollars because she simply wanted to get the issue off the table); and a new charge broken by the Las Vegas Sun that she accepted a $100,000 loan from a developer and campaign contributor without reporting it.