You know, if Albert Einstein were still around, we’d totally ask him how Gov. Jim Gibbons fits in with his whole general theory of relativity thing. Because while light, gravity and even time aren’t constants in the universe, Gibbons’ ability to pull a political pooch screw most certainly is.

Consider: Gibbons comes out with dire predictions of state revenues, and asks department heads to propose cuts to their budgets. (We don’t know what they said, because the governor, backed by his lawyer, is claiming some phantom deliberative process privilege. The Reno Gazette Journal is suing him over the matter, and good for them. New Republican Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert had this to say: "When the time comes that he makes the cuts, he will give the documents to us." Sure, madam minority leader. After all, you’re only a legislator. What business is the state budget of yours?)

Anyway, Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid refused to make cuts in child welfare programs, saying lives are quite literally on the line. (And good for him, too!) The governor continued to talk about the need for cuts, since he’s absolutely refused to raise taxes.

Gibbons held a summit in Carson City, where Reid once more plead for child welfare to be exempt, the way prisons and public safety budgets are. Gibbons said he would "minimize any impact," on the service, according to the Las Vegas Sun. But afterwards, reporter David McGrath Schwartz wrote, "Gibbons, pressed about child welfare by a gaggle of reporters after the formal hearings, again repeated that no decision is final and would not rule out cuts to child services."

But get this: Less than one week later, Gibbons totally acted surprised when asked about cuts to child welfare. Cuts? What cuts?

"I thought it was understood they would be spared from cuts," said Gibbons.

Well, no, it wasn’t, governor. And you know why? Because you said it wasn’t.

Now, if Gibbons intended to exempt child welfare from the beginning, why not just say so, and avoid all the problems that come when it looks like you’re going to cut funding for kids but keep feeding jailbirds three squares a day? Or, if Reid’s arguments made the difference, why not say so at the summit, and toss a little credit his way?

Instead, Gibbons blithely invented a new reality one day, and acted as if he wasn’t intending from the start to be a total dick when it comes to child funding. And, once more, he looks like a guy for whom politics is a brand new job instead of his primary occupation for more than a decade. 

Gibbons is going to hold child welfare budgets harmless, isn’t he? We only ask because the very next day, Gibbons’ budget director, Andrew Clinger, told the Review-Journal there weren’t blanket exemptions to cuts.

"We have already exempted 47 percent of the budget," he said. "There may be some things we can cut that won’t harm children."

There sure are: How about Gibbons philosophical underpinnings that prevent him from considering a way to bring real stability to state government finance? We could sure do without those.

In the meantime, Gibbons ability to screw up politically remains more consistent than the atomic clock, which at present isn’t counting down nearly fast enough to midnight on Dec. 31, 2010.

You’d think there would be nothing left to write about the Democratic presidential debate that took place at UNLV on Thursday. The national media were here, and the thing was broadcast live on CNN. Yet in all the coverage, there were a couple things missing.

The ridiculous

Nobody, to our knowledge, pointed out that Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd was wrong when he declared that presidents take an oath to protect and defend the country from enemies foreign and domestic. The president takes no such oath! For the record, the president’s oath of office is prescribed in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution:

"I [insert name here] do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

 

That’s it, people.

Now there is an oath that mentions enemies, foreign and domestic. Where is that, again? Oh, here it is:

"I [insert name here] do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that that I will well and faithfully discharge the dutiesof the office on which I am about to enter."

 

(Note: The phrase, "so help me God," is typically added at the end of these oaths, but is not officially prescribed.)

So which oath was Dodd talking about? It’s the oath given to federal officers, members of the military, and, perhaps most telling, the vice president. Was Dodd trying to signal something to somebody, we wonder?

The sublime

Regular readers know we’re big supporters of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, and we think everybody saw why during that debate. While other candidates bickered and argued among themselves, Biden delivered clear, intelligent and thoughtful answers to questions. He lightened the mood when appropriate. And he showed why he was the best candidate on that stage to be nominated for the presidency.

Biden had it right when he said that people don’t care about whether U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or former U.S. Sen. John Edwards was right in their squabbles or not. They don’t care if she said something last week slightly different than this week, or if he couldn’t give a straight answer to a question after he said straight answers are what people want. They care about who can do the job! And Biden can most definitely do the job. (How many of those senators have been on the phone with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf trying to negotiate for democracy, for example?)

But did we hear about Biden’s qualifications? Or anybody’s, for that matter? Not even. The debate coverage focused almost exclusively on Clinton’s supposed rebound and putting Obama and Edwards in their place. Whether national or local, reporters never seemed to stop to ask the key question: What did this debate tell us about who should be the Democratic nominee to be president? Instead, it told us about what the reporters thought of the players, their exits and entrances and many parts. (Oh, and the diamonds or pearls question, which CNN engineered.)

It’s only when you’re listening for substance, or at least as much substance as can be garnered from a format where yes or no answers are demanded, that you realized most of what we saw was sound and fury, signifying nothing. Seriously, people, how do stories about who raised how much money, or who is moving staff to and from a particular state, or how many times a candidate has visited a particular state, tell us about who should be president and why? Answer: They don’t. It’s time to move away from the trivial, and get to the serious, because it’s a serious decision.

Check out the debate again, if you’d like. The New York Times has the video and the transcript. Read it again and tell us if you don’t think — on substance, now, not style — Biden didn’t clean the floor with his opponents. And tell us why he shouldn’t be the next president. Because after seeing the debate and reading the coverage, we sure as hell can’t figure that out.

We’re back from the California wine country, readers, and yes, we did imbibe quite a bit of the fruit of the vine last week. But we understand a thing or two happened in our absence, so let’s get caught up, shall we?

• Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was endorsed by both nutty televangelist Pat Robertson and former Nevada Gov. Robert List, who also endorses dumping nuclear waste in the Silver State. Most surprising is the fact that Giuliani is actually telling people he was endorsed by Robertson and List. You’d think a strategic thinker who singlehandedly saved New York from 9/11 would know better.
  
• "This country has never, ever, I believe, gotten in trouble by exaggerating a threat. We’ve gotten ourselves more into trouble when we underestimate a threat," Giuliani told the Keystone Corp., which by the way is a shadowy Nevada right-wing political group and not a North Carolina real estate concern. Apparently, nobody has told Giuliani about the Alien & Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II or the Patriot Act.
  
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." — former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We just thought it needed to be said. Again.
  
• The state of Nevada fights the good fight, and ends up losing millions in taxpayer money. Which, you know, might come in handy given the fact that we’re facing a big budget shortfall. Next time, call Ed Bernstein, not the AG.
  
• The state and the Clark County district attorney’s office have to pay the American Civil Liberties Union’s attorney’s fees in that case involving advertising for brothels. (We at Various Things & Stuff were a plaintiff in that case, for full disclosure.) Well, that’s what they get for defending an obviously unconstitutional law. (And good thing they didn’t call Ed Bernstein.)
  
• President George W. Bush formally nominated ex-Assemblyman Greg Brower to be Nevada’s newest U.S. attorney, which reminded us that U.S. Sen. John Ensign never did get fired U.S. Attorney Dan Bogden’s reputation restored, did he? Oh, well, just add it to the list of things that Ensign has never, and will never, accomplish, right along with "winning Senate seats" and "passing good laws."
  
• Clark County — unbelievably — is set to bless the incurable, obscene, unethical and outrageous conflict of interest presented by California attorney Scott W. Gordon. (Gordon represents Clark County in an ongoing legal tussle with Republic Services over cleanup of the shuttered Sunrise Landfill. And he also represents Republic Services in California, a conflict he claims he disclosed to the county in 2000 but which nonetheless took many by surprise.) Instead of following Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani’s very sensible suggestion to fire Gordon immediately, the county’s looking to waive his conflict and allow him to keep representing taxpayers! Oh, man, is it ever time to call Ed Bernstein!
  

UPDATE: The county put off blessing the incurable, obscene, unethical and outrageous conflict of interest presented by California attorney Scott W. Gordon, in order to get a legal opinion from the State Bar of California. Why, you ask, is the county not filing an ethics complaint with the State Bar of California instead, given that nobody knew about Gordon’s conflicts until recently? That’s a good question. Another good question is why the county didn’t hire a pit-bull attorney here in town, since we’ve heard there are a few. And yet another good question is how do we really know there are such things as tachyons, but now we’re getting off the subject.