Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

SELECTIVE AMNESIA: Perhaps Gov. Kenny Guinn was giddy with Potomac fever, but on a recent visit to Washington, D.C., he very nearly joined Republicans for Reid, the growing list of GOP members who are supporting Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid instead of Republican Richard Ziser this time around.

It's understandable, after all. Guinn and Reid are friends, and everybody recognizes the value of having your senior senator be the second-ranking guy in his party.

"I have a good relationship with Sen. Reid. I think he's probably going to be the person to win," Guinn told Tony Batt, one of the Stephens Media Group's Washington, D.C., reporters.

But if Guinn can see past his partisanship when it comes to his non-endorsement endorsement of Reid, why can't he do it with President George W. Bush? That's right, instead of campaigning for Ziser, Guinn says he's going to spend his time trying to get Bush elected. That's the same Bush who told Guinn--and everyone else in the Silver State--that he wouldn't sign off on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump unless "sound science" said it was safe. The same Bush who promptly authorized Yucca, despite a personal plea from Guinn in the Oval Office.

What does Kenny Guinn owe George W. Bush? Not a damn thing.

But instead of acting like his good friend Reid, who called Bush a liar because of what the president did on Yucca, Guinn and the rest of the state's Republicans went mute. Can't criticize the president, after all.

"We've had a disagreement with him on Yucca Mountain," Guinn told Batt. Right. The kind of disagreement that muggers often have with their victims, perhaps?

Guinn has shown he can rise above partisan labels. He's a lame-duck governor, with nothing to lose now. He should find his voice long enough to say the president screwed Nevada, and nobody in this state should lift a finger to give Bush four more years in the White House.

He should say that. But he won't. And that's a shame.

POLL POT: I for one am looking forward with great delight to asking certain politicians running for reelection how they feel about the new initiative to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana.

That's because last time, many of the feckless incumbents responded to 2002's initiative to legalize up to three ounces of marijuana with some variation of the lame line, "three ounces is a lot of pot."

So now that organizers have settled on just one ounce, all of those lawmakers are going to have to come up with some all new, fantastic excuse for saying no, lest they have to admit what truly lies at the heart of their objections: We don't like marijuana, and we can tell you what to do in the privacy of your own home. So there. Or the ever-popular, voters don't like it, and I'm afraid they'll toss me out if I support it.

Yes, I simply cannot wait for election season to start in earnest.