So Gov. Jim Gibbons, pressured by my colleague Jon Ralston, has released the records of his legal defense fund. The fund was created during his run for the state’s highest office, when a trio of scandals threatened to torpedo his political career.

It’s still unclear to us what the rules are for these legal defense things. Is it governed by state rules, or federal rules? Does it fall under the same rules for other political fundraising? What are the reporting requirements? And do campaign fundraising limits apply?

Ralston has posted the report on his blog, and my colleague Hugh Jackson has had some good commentary on it on his blog. So all that’s left for us to do is analyze the statement the governor made when he released the documents Tuesday. Our snarky comments appear in italics.

"During my campaign for governor, while I was still a member of Congress, we established a legal defense fund to help defray the costs of dealing with legal issues that were raised during the campaign," the statement begins.

Got that? Legal issues "were raised." It wasn’t that Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, had hired an illegal nanny, or that he had accepted a private jet ride and Caribbean cruise that he didn’t report to Congress or that he might have used his office to help somebody seeking Defense Department and intelligence agency contracts or that he put himself in a bizarre situation with a drunken cocktail waitress! Oh, no! These issues "were raised," and poor Gibbons was simply an unwitting victim!

"While attorneys have told me that it is not clear what rules govern that fund — federal or state — I want to make sure there is as much disclosure as possible. Accordingly, no matter what rules actually apply, I am disclosing the donors and disbursements that were made," the statement continues.

Yes, he’s all for full disclosure — although he waited a few days after Ralston asked for the documents to actually release them. In the interim, we’re sure that the governor and his attorneys carefully considered every possible way to keep the names of the donors secret, and realized that they would most likely eventually be forced to disclose anyway. So why not do it and make it sound like it was your idea?

"It is becoming a reality in political life that these kinds of legal funds are being used more and more by public officials and I will insure that mine has as much disclosure as possible," the statement concludes.

Really? It’s a reality that you need a legal defense fund? We could be wrong here, but we’re willing to bet that Gibbons is the only governor — nay, the only elected official — in the nation who needs a legal defense fund to fend off allegations that he allegedly tried to assault a cocktail waitress, AND hired an illegal nanny AND allegedly used his office to help a friend and campaign contributor win federal contracts.

Oh, by the way, it’s "ensure," governor.

» Quotable: "We believe, as we said at the time of his indictment, that he [I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby] is totally innocent, totally innocent, and that he did not do anything wrong. And we intend to keep fighting to establish his innocence." — Theodore Wells, Jr., one of Libby’s attorneys.

Pardon us, counselor, but you’re wrong. A jury of Libby’s peers has convicted him on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. That means he’s most certainly not innocent. He’s guilty. And a felon. Remember the saying, "Innocent until proven guilty"? Well, he’s just been proven guilty. Deal with it.

» To say the George W. Bush administration lies just doesn’t cut it any more. We’ve got to start measuring the lies not by number, as that would be too cumbersome, but by weight: As of this writing, we’re up to 24.3 maritime tons.

The latest: Now-former U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden was fired for "performance" reasons. That’s what Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told Congress last month. But at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, DOJ official William Moschella said Bogden was replaced because "there was an interest in bringing renewed energy and renewed vigor in that office, really taking it to the next level."

You may be asking yourself if the Bush administration really dumped a person who by all measures seemed to be a very competent, very effective federal prosecutor with a slogan one might hear in the locker room of a high school football team. Rest assured, people: That was just another administration lie. Boop! We’re up to 24.4 maritime tons. Man, they add up fast.

The real reason? Here’s our guess: The president’s people had just two years to stuff all the U.S. attorney’s offices around the country with political people in need of resume padding for the purposes of one day becoming federal judges or candidates for office. And that truth has still not issued from anybody in Washington, D.C., nor will it ever.

But while we may never be able to prove it, we at least know Main Justice is lying. How? A hearing called by Democrats, which is something that never would have been allowed to happen had the GOP retained control of the House. At least now, even if we don’t get to the final truth, we can at least expose the lies.

Now, about those prewar intelligence hearings. When are we going to schedule those bad boys?

» Quotable: "It wouldn’t take but a gentle nudge to move this state from red to blue." — Republican political consultant Pete Ernaut. Nudge! Nudge like there’s no tomorrow, people!

» You know what Nevada needs? A conservative political convention! But not one in which Ann Coulter makes anti-gay slurs, or religious rightists come to get their Bible on. No, a real conservative conference, one at which people are consistent about keeping government tiny.

And it looks like that’s what we’re going to get, thanks to conservative activist Chuck Muth. He tells the Las Vegas Sun he’s looking to reach out to the libertarian conservatives, not the Pat Robertson conservatives. "We’re trying to promote the Barry Goldwater side of the movement rather than the Jerry Falwell side," he says.

Amen, brother! But you might want to nix anticipated speaker Grover Norquist, who helped lauder political money to Robertson’s former No. 2, Ralph Reed, in a Jack Abramoff-connected scheme. Muth also mentioned Japanese-internment-camp justifier Michelle Malkin among his list of potential guests.

This whole thing sounds like a target-rich environment for us, so we’re waiting for our media credential in the mail, Chuck! (The truth is, we know Muth well, and he’s our kind of conservative: informed, intelligent and able to give every bit as good as he gets when it comes to debating over beers, which is our favorite way to debate.) So — we can’t believe we’re saying this — we’re actually looking forward to a trip to Reno!

» And finally: Tonight is the night that literary heads around the valley have been waiting for all week! UNLV English Professor Richard Wiley is going to read from his novel Commodore Perry’s Minstrel Show starting at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum on the UNLV campus. Wiley, who has won a prestigious PEN/Faulker Award, is associate director of the Black Mountain Institute, the literary think tank headed by former UNLV President Carol Harter. (The event is co-sponsored by the University Forum and CityLife.)

The Marjorie Barrick Museum is located in between the ultra-cool looking Lied Library and the brand-spanking-new Wright Hall on the UNLV campus. (If you need better directions, check out UNLV’s sweet interactive maps page.)