In journalism school, they teach you to get both (or all) sides of a story, and to present them to the reader so he or she can decide who’s right. That’s one of the many reasons journalism school sucks.

Let’s say we were writing a story about the Earth. Should we give equal weight to those people who believe the Earth is flat, and that the sun revolves around it? Or should we instead ignore those people as ignorant throwbacks to a less enlightened age, whose disrespect for science and human knowledge disqualifies them from being taken seriously?

Our point: You’ve got to call bullshit sometimes, objectivity be damned. Journalism — and politics — would be much better off if we did.

So take the comments of Merrill Lynch’s Hugh Anderson, the chairman of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s government affairs committee, as an example. No, Anderson does not think the Earth is flat. But he is trying to get us to buy into a concept that’s similar, in that it’s fictional. Here’s what he told the Las Vegas Sun for a story today:

“We’re all for having the best education system possible, we’re all for the best transportation system possible, we’re all for making sure the vulnerable population is attended to the best we can do,” Anderson said.

But not now, “If you start increasing taxes at this, the worst time for many businesses, you’ll encourage small business to close doors or lay off people,” he said.

We don’t want to be impolite, but this is bullshit, every bit as much as saying the Earth is flat. Why? Because the chamber — specifically the people on the government affairs committee — have at every turn rejected ideas that would help give us the best education system and transportation system and help vulnerable people “…the best we can do.”

The chamber has said no to funding that would have been directed to doing those very things.

The chamber has endorsed candidates who come out against properly funding those very things.

And then the chamber has bragged about its success in stopping initiatives that would have done those very things.

And Anderson knows it, or at least he should.

As for this being “the worst time” to increase taxes, and the specter of closures and layoffs, this, too, is bullshit. Why do we say that? Because the chamber used the exact same threats back in 2003, when it was looking down the barrel of a gross receipts tax, and the economy was humming along fairly well.

So if you can’t raise taxes when times are bad, and you can’t raise taxes when times are good, when can you raise taxes? Never! Get it?

But wait, you protest. You seem to be implying that the only way to get better schools, better roads and better social services is to raise taxes. What’s up with that?

You’re right. That’s exactly what we’re saying. And more than that, we’re saying it’s time to raise taxes on businesses, the ones that currently pay nothing on their gross or net profits. Businesses such as Merrill Lynch, Cashman Equipment Co., Republic Services, Green Valley Grocery, Inc., Priority Staffing USA, Lucchesi, Galati Architects, Inc., Silver State Materials, Wells Fargo Bank, Sierra Health Services,  O’Reilly & Ferrario, LLC, DJS Consulting, Ted Wiens Tire and Auto, Sierra Pacific Resources and The Molasky Group of Companies, all of whom just happen to be represented on the chamber’s rabidly anti-tax government affairs board.

The Earth is round, people. And if you really believed in good schools, good roads and healthy social services, you wouldn’t be doing everything in your power to avoid paying up.

You know, its nice when bipartisanship rules the day, Republicans and Democrats reach across the aisle and agree on solutions and everybody goes home happy, isn’t it?

Yeah, right. That kind of sentence reminds us of the unpublished political cartoon by the great master Paul Conrad, who once drew a Democratic donkey being mounted from behind by a Republican elephant, with the one-word caption: “Bipartisanship.”

But from our reading of a nice Sunday conversation among Republican and Democratic leaders in today’s Las Vegas Sun, it seems the elephant is getting ready to have its way with the donkey.

The upshot: Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley agree (with each other, and with Gov. Jim Gibbons!): This is not the time for taxes. Instead, we should conduct a broad study of local and state tax revenues, and see if we might be able to identify a need for some changes down the road. In the meantime, let’s try to protect what programs we can with our existing (albeit ever declining) revenues.

Now, we were not part of this great Sunday conversation, no doubt because we’d have asked Raggio (the guy who came up with the study idea) a few pointed follow up questions, like, “Gee, senator, don’t you think all the other studies that have already been done point out the problem quite nicely?” Or maybe this: “Isn’t a study the classic way legislators avoid taking action?” Or perhaps this: “You’ve been up there since the friggin 1970s! Are you telling us you don’t already know exactly what has to be done?”

Of course, Raggio (and Buckley, and Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford and Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert) all know what the problem is, without benefit of a study. We all do, or at least all of us outside Gibbons.

But just for fun, we’d also like to ask Raggio something along these lines: “So, senator, if we do a study and it shows that we need new taxes, would you support something like a gross receipts tax, which was proposed after the last tax study back in 2003?” We don’t have to call up north for our answer: No, said Raggio. That’s off the table.

Oh, so if we don’t need a study to determine that, then why do we need a study at all? Questions, always more questions after these things.

Like this one: Raggio said local government tax revenues should be in the mix, since perhaps the state might want to share in some tax revenue that currently goes to local government. Isn’t that an implicit acknowledgment that the state needs more money? And — wow! — hasn’t he come to that conclusion without the need for a study?

We were sad to see neither Buckley nor Horsford — bright, savvy and experienced leaders both — didn’t lean across the table to say something like this: “Look, we all know what the problem is. Our tax system is broken, and it has been for years. We come up to Carson every other year and cobble together a plan to get us through until the next session, and then go home. Meanwhile, real people with real problems suffer, and we don’t ever do anything to fix their underlying problems. We don’t need a study to tell us that. We’ve been living that! Now let’s drop the horseshit and get together on a tax package that will see everybody — not just the gambling industry — pay its fair share, and to hell with political considerations!”

But we’re idealistic that way. We loved The American President, for example.

Sadly, it was left to Sen. Bob Coffin, term limited and facing his final legislative session in 2009, to speak for the Democrats. Sen. Coffin, thanks for rescuing us from what otherwise could have been a very bad Sunday. We promise that when we write the definitive novel about Nevada politics, and they make it into a movie, we’ll try our best to get Gene Hackman to play you.

Despite what appears to us to be the largest amount of self-promotion in the history of the universe and recorded time, Las Vegas resident Wayne Allen Root lost the Libertarian nomination for president of the United States.

Instead, he’ll be the party’s vice-presidential nominee, which ensures at least six more months of Root-centered remarks from Root.

Meeting at a convention in Denver, the Libertarians (after six ballots) picked former Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia as their standard bearer. No doubt immediately after learning there was a person named Wayne Allen Root and that this person had money, Barr endorsed Root for vice president.

For his part, Root’s road to the Naval Observatory has led his through plenty of local media outlets, most recently in the Las Vegas Sun, where his passion for protecting people earning between $300,000 and $500,000 really came out.

For Root, the hardest part of the day was probably not being eliminated in the fifth round of balloting, or being forced to play second fiddle to Barr, who left the Republican Party over civil liberties concerns (he realized the party didn’t have any). No, for Root, the hardest part was no doubt trying to figure out where on his website he might find the space to mention Barr.

UPDATE: In a news release, Root blows himself.

If the Jim Gibbons administration decides to take up Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki on his favorite scheme to sell bonds against tobacco settlement funds, which he says would generate $775 million in revenue, just promise us one thing: Let somebody other than Krolicki do it.

We don’t want to give in to our natural skepticism, see, but we can’t avoid it: Krolicki has a documented history of trying to steer contracts to friends or people who can help him politically. It’s one reason all Nevada taxpayers should be happy he’s nowhere near the state treasurer’s office anymore.

As for the idea itself? Other than the fact that the state would have to come up with money to fund the Millennium Scholarship and health programs elsewhere in the budget, other than the fact that we’d be leaving money on the table, other than the fact that suggesting this idea (which he’s advanced unsuccessfully in the past) right now seems a convenient way for Krolicki to suggest that current Treasurer Kate Marshall isn’t doing the best job possible (she is, by the way) and other than the fact that it could very well be that Herr Weasel may be trying to weasel his way back to a place where he can once again wheel and deal with state money, it sounds like a nifty idea.

But seriously, don’t let Krolicki do it. That’s bad news waiting to happen.

Remember a few weeks ago, when we wrote in CityLife to tell you that Hillary Clinton should get out of the race for president, not because she was losing in every measurable way, but because she’d proven herself unworthy of the office? Yeah, this is what we were talking about.

Now, some talking heads on Fox News Sunday said today it was no big deal, but host Chris Wallace dubbed Clinton’s remark “ghoulish.” And you know when Fox says it’s ghoulish, it’s pretty bad.

We’d rant, but it would be a waste of energy after Keith Olbermann already did it so much better than we ever could. Watch and be outraged.