» GOP operative Chuck Muth wrote that Assemblyman Garn Mabey’s skipping the inauguration of Gov. Jim Gibbons was an insult. Mabey told the Review-Journal’s John L. Smith that Muth’s opinion was "asinine."

We just can’t pick sides on this one.

» No, no, no! We told you before, lawyers! Don’t put former state Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker in the appellate division! She’s terrible at it! And that includes you, District Attorney David Roger!

» Quotable: "I may not be the best, church-going Mormon. I will answer for my discretions when I get to heaven. … Faith is important to me, but I don’t wear it on my shoulder. I don’t run around like some people and hang it out there. It is something that guides me." — Gov. Jim Gibbons, on church and state relations.

» Quotable corrections: It’s your indiscretions that you answer for in heaven. People wear their faith on their sleeve, not on their shoulder. (Military men in certain uniforms do wear their rank insignia on their shoulders, on something called "shoulder boards.") And some people may put it out there, but if you hang it out there, well, you’ve got another indiscretion to answer for in heaven.

» The guy who accused Mayor Oscar Goodman of consorting with bimbos and who was subsequently tossed out of City Hall after hurling an anti-Semitic remark has apparently threatened the mayor, too. City marshals paid a little visit to Al Hessen’s house after reviewing the letter, which threatens to slice the mayor up and serve him at the local homeless shelter.

Now, we’re pretty much First Amendment absolutists, so we think Hessen should have had the right to speak at the council meeting and call Goodman’s showgirl escorts "bimbos," as disrespectful as that might be. But after he disrupted the meeting, Goodman was perfectly within his rights to have Hessen removed.

And a physical threat against the mayor’s safety? Although Hessen is claiming the marshal’s visit was intimidation, we disagree. It was a prudent step to investigate Hessen, or anyone who says they’re going to do harm to the mayor or other public officials. (The Secret Service investigates threats against the president, which are federal crimes.) Hessen should be free to make outrageous comments, or even anti-Semitic ones, but if he disrupts public meetings (a misdemeanor under state law) or threatens people with bodily harm, he should expect to endure the consequences.

» Presley Conkle, who’s had a couple of pieces run in CityLife over the years, is now advocating to drop the word "community" from the title of the "Community College of Southern Nevada," where he’s the student-body president. According to the Review-Journal, 9,000 students (out of the institution’s 35,000) agree with him, and signed a petition to that effect. One key supporter: University Chancellor Jim Rogers.

People say the phrase "community college" is derogatory, and the subject of jokes.

"Our biggest challenge is one of public relations and public communication," says CCSN President Richard Carpenter. (Really? Dude, you should totally take some classes in PR! We think they offer them at the community college.)

It turns out that the community college has a four-year degree program — in dental hygiene — and thus it could qualify as a "college," although college officials assure the mission wouldn’t change. (That mission? Finding no-work jobs for legislative paramours and old co-workers of Carpenter’s, of course!)

Hey, we know. Why not change the name of the Community College of Southern Nevada to "Harvard University"? Sure, you’d have to boost that dental hygiene program to a PhD, but you could do it. Or how about "Princeton" and just leave it at that? There’s no academic rule that says you can’t call it "Princeton." Or maybe that’s not self-affirming enough. How about "Oxford"! That’s right, Oxford. You’ve got a degree from a place so cool, they named a shirt after it!

We can’t wait until the regents (henceforth known as the "wise counsel of the quorum of the 13") get this one.

If you haven’t done so, take this opportunity to re-read the comments in Friday’s Review-Journal from Gov. Jim Gibbons‘ press secretary, Melissa Subbotin. They are very surprising, to say the least, and have been the subject of much chatter and eye-rolling in the political world.

First, Subbotin says that Gibbons felt that former Gov. Kenny Guinn’s appointee to the Gaming Control Board — Keith Munro, who served as Guinn’s chief of staff — was unqualified for the job and was put in place for political reasons. That’s bad enough, given that Munro is considered to be very qualified, even if he does lack a background in law enforcement. (He’s an attorney and former prosecutor, not an ex-cop.)

But it didn’t end there.

"Mr. Gibbons believes Keith Munro is an upstanding individual, a fine public servant and a good Republican, he’s just not the person for the job," she said. "This was a political appointment made by Gov. Guinn without the interests of the people in mind. Mr. Gibbons’ intention in this appointment was to make this an apolitical position."

Really? Then why note that Munro was "a good Republican"? That’s irrelevant, isn’t it? And if we can accept that Guinn installed Munro in an effort to screw Gibbons out of his own pick to a top seat (and trust us, we can accept that) then we must also accept that Gibbons’ appointment of control board investigations chief Randall Sayre is an attempt to screw Guinn back. It is, therefore, entirely political, for both men.

But it didn’t end there.

Subbotin went on to say that moving forward with Munro on the control board was, in the words of the R-J, "potentially corrupting."

Now those are fighting words, even in paraphrase. In the era of Wall Street, corporate casino bosses and gambling expansion to nearly every state, the word "corrupting" is as loaded as a Roberto’s Taco Shop breakfast burrito, baby.

But it didn’t end there.

"Mr. Gibbons feels that moving forward with Keith Munro’s politically motivated appointment would be undermining the tradition of the Gaming Control Board," Subbotin said. "That would be moving back to the dark ages when politics and personal interests ruled the Gaming Control Board. This administration is not for sale."

What? Is the press secretary to the governor of the state of Nevada, the No. 1 gambling jurisdiction in the country, if not the world, really saying that the presence of Keith Munro is going to plunge the state’s key gambling regulatory apparatus into corruption? Is the governor of Nevada’s spokeswoman really casting doubt upon the integrity of gambling industry regulation?

That, dear readers, is truly unique, even if you lay aside for the moment the question of precisely whether these alleged "dark ages" of politics and personal interests actually happened. (And are you telling us that Gibbons has no personal or political interest in getting his pick in and Guinn’s pick out?)

And who the hell is trying to "buy" the Gibbons administration? And do they accept Pay Pal? (Only kidding; we’re pretty sure nobody’s trying to buy the Gibbons administration.)

So, normally, in times like this, you’d see what they call "walking it back." Either the press secretary, or perhaps somebody more senior, would emerge to tell the press that, in fact, Gibbons doesn’t think that the Munro appointment was political, and that he’s very qualified for the job, and that no, there’s no corruption in the pristine gambling regulators in Nevada, which means that players and investors alike have nothing to fear from coming to Las Vegas. It was just a case of a misunderstanding, or high emotions, or something like that.

But we haven’t seen that. In fact, those comments have stood for several days, which leads us at Various Things & Stuff to think that, perhaps, Gibbons really does believe all that.

Which leads us to our colleague Jon Ralston’s Sunday column in the Las Vegas Sun. Ralston acknowledges that Guinn’s 11th-hour-plus appointment of Munro was, well, kind of dickish, but that it pales in comparison to the Gibbons administration’s approach to the issue. (That includes saying they would not seek to change Munro’s appointment, and then immediately seeking to change Munro’s appointment after a midnight swearing-in.)

Here’s what Ralston had to say:

 

"Kenny Guinn is guilty of being petty and vindictive in stealing an appointment that was rightfully Jim Gibbons’ to make, flouting tradition and decorum. But the new governor is guilty of intentionally misleading the public, sending his minions out to lie for him, trying to subvert the duties of another constitutional officer, slandering a dedicated public servant and, worst of all, using the public’s security fears as cover for a political ploy.

"One is a sad misdemeanor by an outgoing governor who is, to use a word he once reserved for the Gang of 63, irrelevant. The other is a scary series of felonies by a new governor whose administration is only a week old."

 

 

It seems to us that the new administration was, quite literally, born in a lie. And that is an exceedingly bad thing.