Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: R-J blinded by hate

Friday, May 3, 2002 | 3:36 a.m.

I WONDER WHAT the Review-Journal editors do when they aren't hating Bill Clinton?

We may never know because it appears to be a full-time job for them. Take the former president's recent visit to Las Vegas to speak at UNLV for the Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series, for example. For those of you who are new to Las Vegas, anything that has the name Greenspun attached to it automatically qualifies for special treatment in the other paper. And, if the guest lecturer is Bill Clinton, he doesn't stand a chance. They don't know who to hate more!

The former president was in town for less than 24 hours when the R-J welcomed him with an absurdly written editorial that seemed to suggest that no matter how good a leader of the Free World he was during his eight years, no matter how competent he was in ending decades-long deficits and turning them into surpluses that have already been squandered by the Bush administration, no matter how many new jobs were created while he led the way to the greatest peacetime economic expansion in history, no matter how many countries around the world embraced democracy as a way of life and governing because of his leadership, no matter how good was his service to this country and the world, he still did wrong in the Paula Jones case.

Huh?

The only people who looked bad on that day were the editors and owners of that silly newspaper who thought that they could convince the unconvinced in Las Vegas that Bill Clinton was bad for America and bad for our community. The fact of the matter is that the only people who sullied anything were their editorial writers, who think that reasonable and responsible Nevadans give a damn about what they say anyway.

It is now painfully obvious to most people that the R-J didn't get its fill of hate-mongering last Sunday when it tried its disrespectful best to disgrace our city during Mr. Clinton's visit. A visit, I might add, that provided the opportunity for over 6,000 people to listen to one of the brightest minds on the planet talk about a vision for America and the world that will benefit us all if we only have the courage to embrace it. Obviously, no one from the R-J attended that speech with a mind open enough to pay heed, because Wednesday they fired another salvo. This time at one of the few people in this country decent and honorable enough to try to help the people of Nevada stop the nuclear waste onslaught that is being sent our way by President George W. Bush.

Most people haven't lived here long enough to know that one of the greatest and most vocal proponents of Yucca Mountain has been the Review-Journal. Until the marketing people and those who sold advertising for the R-J realized that the people of this state were adamantly opposed to anyone trying to poison their children or aiding in that cause, the other newspaper was pushing for the project. It has been a recent revelation that has caused the other guys to change their tune on Yucca. Not that they are not a welcome addition, because they are. Any and all people who are willing to fight the government's efforts to bury us with radioactive waste -- even hypocrites -- are welcome.

They couldn't wait, though, to attack Clinton's thoughtful answer to a question posed by a UNLV student about his views on Yucca Mountain. He answered by saying it was wrong to choose Yucca Mountain because the science was not complete enough to determine that Nevada was a safe site for the next 10,000 years. He even suggested that we approach senators from small states like Nevada and pose the following question to them: given the fact that the government itself says the science is incomplete and that the only reason Nevada has been chosen is because of its minimal electoral clout, why would they do to Nevadans what they would not tolerate being done to themselves?

He made it clear to all who came to hear him that he never promised that, if the choice were his, he wouldn't pick Yucca Mountain. What he did promise, though, was that such a decision would be based on science, and in this case, the science was not done. If he were president today, he said, he would start spending money on other alternatives, because it now looks like Yucca Mountain's being in the middle of earthquake country will never allow it to qualify. Only an arbitrary and capricious -- my words -- decision to placate political goals could send those trucks and trains our way.

Well, folks, that is exactly what has happened, courtesy of the Bush administration and what appears to be an overwhelming number of GOP members of the House of Representatives. What happens in the Senate is yet to be learned, but it should be apparent to all that this fight will be won or lost in the upper chamber of the Capitol Building. For sure, we have legal claims to carry on the fight, but with the Supreme Court's penchant for letting Congress do what it wants -- regardless of the fact that a sovereign state does not want it -- I think our best fight is right here and right now.

That is why it is so bewildering and so counterproductive for the R-J, blinded by some idiotic rage and an inability to control itself, to take after one of the few people strong enough to help us win this fight. It is as if they really don't want Nevada to stop the dump. Like some of our political people and even some business folks, they are content to put up a good fight, just not one good enough to win.

Well, that just isn't good enough for a newspaper that is supposed to serve the community in which it operates. No matter how much it still can't stand the fact that the people of the United States voted for Bill Clinton and actually liked the job he did -- and would vote him back in tomorrow if they had the chance -- it is still not reason enough to try to undermine this state's fight against Yucca Mountain.

For what they have tried to do they should be ashamed and they should apologize to every Nevadan. They won't, however, because they aren't big enough people to admit when they are wrong. They also can't see the truth through all that blinding hate that plagues them.

I almost feel sorry for that sorry newspaper down the street.