Backstory: Scratching the surface

By Michael Green

Whether you vote early, late, not at all or multiple times, politicians often end up involved in something that makes you scratch your head. Here are some notes about dandruff prevention:

• State Sen. Ann O'Connell understandably is displeased. A citizens group accused her of supporting higher taxes. Since it's impossible to explain the 2003 Legislature in a 30-second ad, unless you just repeat the phrase "mass hysteria" several times, her campaign did the next best thing by attacking the attackers. In algebra, as in politics, a negative multipled by a negative usually equals a positive. As the announcer explained, those claiming to form the citizens group really aren't citizens. They are lawyers and casino executives.

In other words, illegal aliens practicing law and running casinos attacked O'Connell. Either that, or O'Connell's ad is as silly as the ads claiming she backs higher taxes. Indeed, O'Connell was virtually a heroine to many of those now attacking her when she opposed higher taxes during the previous two decades. But this time she opposed the higher taxes her newfound enemies wanted.

Well, casino executives, lawyers and other folks have the right to do just what they're doing. And it's hard to feel sympathetic toward O'Connell, whose major legislative accomplishment has been to oppose just about everything that would make Nevada a better place to live. But her campaign's response, while illogical, also is superb in one way and migraine-inducing in another.

The superbness lies in picking on lawyers, whom people never seem to like until they need one. Perhaps O'Connell's exposure to the Legislative Counsel Bureau, which once ruled that a judicial opinion said exactly the opposite of what it said, has soured her on them as much as the university system counsel's office has soured me. But I happen to like most of the lawyers I have known, and many happen to be public-spirited citizens. I also like chocolate, and find more agreeing with me on that subject than on lawyers.

The migraine has to do with gaming. O'Connell is a very conservative Republican. That tends to define her as the sort who would support the biggest business around. Instead, her campaign has put her on the side of Daniel against the (MGM?) lion.

• George W. Bush is trying to turn his lie about Yucca Mountain to his advantage. Apparently, when Gaul was divided, Bush thought it was spelled Gall and took all of it.

In 2000, with Bush in trouble on the nuclear waste issue, Nevada Republicans asked him to say something--anything. He wrote a letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn, explaining he would rely on "sound science" in making his decisions, then returned his crayons to their original location. In 2002, The Rug ignored sound science and chose Yucca Mountain for the dump.

How to respond in 2004? By pointing out that Sen. John Kerry voted for the dump several times. How did Kerry respond? By doing an ad promising not to allow waste to be sent to Nevada.

Those who criticize Kerry supporters for saying Bush promised not to send nuclear waste here are partly right. The Rug actually vowed to use "sound science." But since the science is unsound--or at least not yet sound, according to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--that means he promised not to send nuclear waste here.

Lost in all this is the obvious. While Kerry cares about Nevada's electoral votes, he also cares about the possibility that, as president, he might deal with the Senate now and then. The Senate's second most powerful Democrat, Nevada's Harry Reid, is known to feel strongly about nuclear waste. If Kerry becomes president--pray hard that he does--and tries to send waste here, could Reid be a little less cooperative on other issues?

Fair enough. But has it occurred to anyone that only a moron, a pathological liar or someone who holds every Nevadan in utter contempt would try to make the kind of case on Yucca Mountain that the Bush campaign is making? You'd think they would be crazy enough to claim that Kerry isn't really a war hero because he wasn't badly wounded enough and opposed the war after having fought in it.

Oh, yeah. The Bush campaign is doing that.

• By now, you may have watched some of the Republican National Convention and seen the party's gentler side. You know, compassionate conservatives like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who boldly gropes where no man has groped before; Rudy Guiliani, whose fine response to Sept. 11 almost made us forget his policies encouraged policemen to stick plungers up the anal orifices of some suspects; Zell Miller, the Georgian who started attacking Democrats as soon as he wasn't running for office anymore and now devotes himself to repealing constitutional amendments and the result of the Civil War; and Sen. John McCain, whose Vietnam heroism hasn't stopped him from consorting with Republicans who have questioned his sanity and manhood.

One goal, some Republicans say, is to show voters what Bush is really like and where he's headed. Whatever you think of Bush, he has been in the White House 3 1/2 years. Isn't that enough time to find out?

And you wonder why so much head-scratching goes on. It isn't dandruff.