DEMOCRACY IN PERIL

Thursday, June 12, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

'GOODMAN VINDICATED': The publisher of the book Positively Fifth Street has agreed to publish a full-page retraction and apology to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in the Bible of the book industry, the New York Times Book Review, on July 6. Goodman retained Los Angeles attorney Anthony Glassman, a First Amendment specialist, after he was told that a passage in the book by author James McManus said he was present when the murder of a federal judge was planned.

Goodman flatly denies any such meeting ever took place, and that there could therefore be no "lore" associated with it. After Glassman sent a libel demand letter to New York publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the company agreed to apologize, retract the offending passage and publish the same in the New York Times Book Review, as well as edit all future printings of Positively Fifth Street to remove those paragraphs.

"He made it up out of whole cloth," Goodman says of the allegation, adding that McManus never called him to discuss the passage while he was in town attending Binion's World Series of Poker and researching his manuscript. Glassman says the rapid agreement to a retraction shows the passage was legally indefensible. "This is complete and total vindication for the mayor," Glassman says. "You could call it, not a home run, but a grand slam home run."

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: So that ethics anchor turned into a 58-percent-to-42-percent millstone for incumbent Councilman Michael McDonald, who lost to newcomer Janet Moncrief last week.

It would be easy to dismiss Moncrief as "Janet from another planet" with her razor-thin depth of knowledge of the issues and her inability to, say, fill out campaign paperwork. (In a famous quote, she claimed the forms are difficult to understand.) But we're mindful that McDonald, when first elected eight years ago, was similarly out of his depth, and he seemed to come along quickly.

We're perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that Moncrief will soon get the hang of things, that she'll figure out what the city cannot do (change state gaming law) and what it can do (build parks, fill potholes). Heck, she might even abandon her home in Clark County and buy a house in the ward in which she purports to be a qualified elector. Anything's possible.

Until then, how many people want to bet that Mayor Oscar Goodman is offering to show Moncrief around City Hall? "Here's the bathroom, Janet, and here's the elevator, here's the lunchroom, oh, and here's the little green button that you press whenever I give you the signal..."

Steve Sebelius writes a daily e-mail newsletter, the E-Briefing, from which "Democracy in Peril" is excerpted. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com. To subscribe to the E-Briefing at a Mercury reader special price of $20 per year, go to www.lasvegasmercury.com/ebriefing.