Letter: Reid’s attack on president is bad for Nevada

Monday, March 4, 2002 | 9:03 a.m.

As thousands of Nevadans pray for President Bush's success in the war effort, our own Sen. Harry Reid chose recently to personally attack and vilify the president for his decision to approve Yucca Mountain as a repository for the nation's nuclear waste. In an outburst of partisan rhetoric, Reid told CNN the president "lied" when he told Nevadans in the 2000 campaign he'd base his Yucca Mountain decision on "sound science, not politics." The White House was immediately forced to respond that "Sen. Reid's disagreement on the science is a shameful excuse for a false personal attack against the president." I am with the White House on this one.

Give us all a break, Harry. We all know that Yucca Mountain is controversial and complicated, with differing opinions both pro and con within our own state. We suspect the odds are stacked against us in winning this fight against the federal government. Yet you go out of your way to personally disrespect the president of the United States by calling him a liar.

By continuing to make this "personal" against President Bush, just so you can score a few political points in Nevada, is petty and demeaning to your office and to our state.

Keep up the personal attacks, senator, and you can count on the fact that Nevada will eventually lose against this likable, wartime president. You have only given cause to the White House and the rest of the nation that Nevadans are a bunch of name-calling, unpatriotic, desert renegades.

DOUGLAS M. BRYANT