Daily Glean: More of a weekend recap glean, really, edition

• Conversation overheard between Republican candidate for governor Jim Gibbons and his handler, Sig Rogich:
  • GIBBONS: "But...but...gee, Mr. Rogich. I thought campaign finance reform was something those dumb old Democrats liked, not us Republicans. And besides, I want to talk about that darned big government and icky liberals and...and...and remind everybody that I'm a war hero and stuff like that!"
  • ROGICH: "Heh heh, sure you do Jimmy. And there will be time for that. But first let's see if we can't throw people off guard by presenting them the story of 'Jim Gibbons, the candidate of reform.' Oh, Jimmy, don't look at me like that. After all, if you really don't want to pretend to be a reformer for a few days, I guess we could always take a position on the tax and spend control initiative. Is that what you'd like to do?"
  • GIBBONS: "Gosh no, Mr. Rogich, that's not what I meant. Okay, I guess you're the boss. Hey, I know! I'll be the 'reformer with results' just like Our President!"
  • ROGICH: "Well, let's just take it one step at a time for now, Jimmy." LVRJ (Sunday)
• Perhaps, like us, you didn't hear about it in the liberal media, but another Bush-Blair memo surfaced in the UK last week. This one shows that in the months leading up to the invasion, Bush was dead-set on invading Iraq, no matter what. Gosh, and he seemed so earnest about exhausting diplomatic options. Guardian, Christian Science Monitor
• Bush's proposed budget slashes Medicare, food stamps, aid to local law enforcement, disease prevention programs, etc., but makes tax cuts to the rich last forever. Post, NYTimes
• AFL-CIO is joined by the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Nevada State Education Association in filing a suit attempting to poke holes in the tax and spend control (TASC) initiative, see if they can force TASC enthusiast Bob Beers, who runs for governor in his spare time, to go back to the lab before circulating his petition. It's worth a shot. One truly never knows, after all, what the Nevada judiciary might do. Or why. LVRJ (Saturday)
• Gov. Kenny Guinn bristles at plan to store mercury in Nevada, says the state isn't a "dump site" for the "toxic substance" (LVRJ Saturday). Mercury? Toxic? Perhaps Mr. Guinn would care to take an interest in the way his Department of Industrial, er, Environmental Protection is working feverishly to let huge mining corporations spew the 'toxic substance" into the air.
• Sun columnist Brian Greenspun, who also serves as the patriarch of the paper's owning family, renders a fair point, albeit in his customary repetitive rambling manner, vis-a-vis the vacuity of Bush's pronouncements on oil independence. But R-J columnist Sherm Frederick, who publishes the newspaper in his spare time, busts out old-school Christian imperialism, loin cloths and the word "fart" -- exactly the type of juxtapositions that witty, clever and entertaining columns are made of. Alas, instead of lightly sprinkling his imaginative references through the column so as to surprise and amuse, Sherm wields them like a blunt instrument, relentlessly pounding them until the meat of his argument is roundly beaten into submission; Sherm's column is a forced thing, the work of a man who is trying too hard to win the Gleaner's weekly award for newspaper kahuna impersonating a columnist. And so, for the second week running, the award goes to Brian.

Comments

[Sr. Bojangles]

Not to bring up a 3 year old topic, but in reference to another Bush/Blair affair, it reminds me of a question I had back then that was never answered.

If we attacked Iraq to enforce UN resolutions, which were designed to disarm Iraq and we've since proven that Iraq was disarmed, had Iraq broken UN resolutions?

There's a hole in the oil drum, dear Liza, dear Liza...