Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Some ‘05 predictions

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 4:43 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

December 18 - 19, 2004

Nobody in their right mind would make predictions. So here goes.

Each year around this time I read pages and pages of predictions from members of the media who think they have an inside track on knowledge. Sometimes they guess right and sometimes they make a laughingstock of themselves. I have never participated in that game for precisely that reason. My fragile ego cannot take an entire city making fun of what I don't know.

But pros like Jon Ralston manage to get away with it. He continually guesses right and wrong in equanimity, but his image as the "most knowledgeable mediaman in the state" continues to grow. So, if Jon can do it, why can't I? The good news is that if I am wrong, way wrong, we won't know for sure until this time next year, and by then most people will have forgotten my foolishness.

Prediction Number 1: Mayor Oscar Goodman's dream of a major league sports team in downtown Las Vegas will get a big boost. Already there are rumblings -- and I don't mean his meetings with Major League Baseball, although they are helpful -- that the developer of the best urban land in America (that would be the 61 acres behind the Union Plaza Hotel) is serious about its potential involvement with a major league team.

But Las Vegas is a city that demands and most often delivers big on its promises. If we bring in the major leagues, we have to do it with a great story to tell. Something that sets us apart from all the others. It may be something as simple as who the ownership is and the message that sends to baseball fans around the country.

Sometime in 2005, I predict Las Vegas will move to the top of the list, and the man who will head that effort will give this town a winner long before he fields a team. Someone, say, like Reggie Jackson. Reggie loves baseball, loves Las Vegas and loves the idea of being the first African-American owner of a Major League Baseball team. How's that for a great Las Vegas story?

I could be wrong, of course, because conventional wisdom says that it is fun to talk about pro sports, but it will never happen. But I may be right. And a lot of Las Vegans hope I am.

Prediction Number 2: All that we have heard about President George W. Bush's short-lived nomination of Bernie Kerik to head up the Department of Homeland Security is not all that we will hear. Not by a long shot. It cannot come as any surprise that Kerik, the former police commissioner of New York City under former Mayor Rudy Guiliani, had more than his share of baggage weighing down his choice as the man in charge of keeping the country safe from terrorists and illegal aliens.

I think the ghosts he has amassed are just part of the shtick that comes with the territory that is New York City. But Kerik has outdone even the most adventurous New Yorker. He has single-handedly flaunted the mores, the laws and the rules of civil behavior designed to keep man in the hunt for most-civilized-animal-of-the-year honors. And even his most ardent supporters are acting like they barely know the man.

What I don't understand, though, is why his mentor, Giuliani, pushed so hard for the president to appoint his business partner to the job. Certainly, despite Rudy's denials, a man of the mayor's experience in such matters would or should have known some, if not most, of Kerik's shortcomings. How could he have thought that using his relationship with Bush would have been all that was necessary in order to get his friend the job? And, despite his apologies to President Bush and the American people, it seems to me that Rudy was holding something back.

So, what's the prediction? Besides more bedtime reading about the man who would and could have been the terrorism czar, and regardless of his own political differences with the powers that be in his own party, Rudy's political star will fade almost as rapidly as it rose to prominence following 9/11. There was something about Rudy that always bothered me, and now that certain something has bothered the president of the United States. That can't possibly be good for a fellow's career. No matter which turn it takes.

Prediction Number 3: Sheldon Adelson has proved his critics wrong. That isn't news, since each of them has given credit where it was due to the man who figured out how to fill Las Vegas hotel rooms during the middle of the week. And at high rates to boot.

This past week his hotel company went public, causing the Venetian owner's net worth to go up more in a single day than the gross national product of most of the world's countries. Good for him and each of his lieutenants who had lesser but by no means insignificant paydays as well. The prediction: This is only the beginning.

Prediction Number 4: This is the only one about which I am certain. In this space during the next couple of weeks, high school students representing many of the 1,000 participants in this year's Las Vegas Sun Youth Forum will share the views and concerns of their young colleagues. It is the only organized time each year when the adults have the opportunity to listen and read what is on the minds of their kids, and it is probably the only time each year when these young adults have the ability to make their voices heard.

Other Youth Forum finalists will appear on KLAS-TV Channel 8 and in the Clark County high school magazine, Class, to share their group's views. I know that the adult moderators this year were very impressed with the thoughtfulness, knowledge and courage of these teenagers, and I am certain that readers will be equally impressed.

Sometimes we forget why we all do what we do each day and for whom we do it. Here's your chance to get back in touch with the reason. Read well and pay heed, for what you hear today could well be the direction we head tomorrow. Whether we like it or not.

From the Sun family to yours, have a very merry holiday season and a very happy new year.

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