Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Were we thinking?

Friday, Nov. 5, 2004 | 4:09 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

November 6 - 7, 2004

The people have spoken. The people are always right.

There are almost half the voters in our country who don't believe that America has made the right decision. But the beauty of this country and our democratic system is that the majority has spoken clearly that President George W. Bush will be our president for the next four years, and so it shall be. And if ever there were a question about that fact -- and there must not be -- Sen. John Kerry put all that to rest on Wednesday in his concession speech.

Perhaps for the first time in his campaign, John Kerry in defeat let the people of this country know who he really is. We saw his emotion, we saw his candor, we saw his humanity. The shame is that in American politics we don't get to see very much of that from either candidate. Instead, we and they get handled by the experts who won't let the American people see who the candidate really is for fear that he may offend -- someone. But that is for another day.

Today, as someone who opposed the president's re-election, I offer my congratulations. President Bush not only won a majority of American votes, but a clear victory in the Electoral College. His victory is legitimate and, like it or not, that is the way this democracy works. When President Bush spoke to the nation an hour or two later he was gracious in victory. He was happy but humble and he reached across the political divide and spoke directly to John Kerry's supporters. He spoke of a new term in which there was a new opportunity to reach out to the "whole nation," one in which we can come together to work together because, in doing so, "there is no limit to the greatness of America."

It remains to be seen which direction the Republicans will take us now that they have firm control of the major branches of government. And with the vagaries of life on the Supreme Court, it is highly probable that Bush will stamp his brand on that institution as well. We are in a situation that is not unlike that of the Republicans for so many years when the Democratic Party was in control and the GOP felt left out of the process. And we have just witnessed the result of that policy.

So we shall see which way Bush goes, and as he goes in the next four years, so will go the fortunes of the Republican Party. Because it appears to me that the only way the Democrats can right themselves is if the opposition gives them the chance. That's because I believe the American people are basically a good and decent people who want to help their neighbors while they secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their loved ones.

The political divide that defines the two-party system today has people of good will on both sides of the aisle with neither side having a clue how the other can think the way it does. It is starting to remind me of what people must have felt like in the middle of the 19th century when the issue of slavery divided families, friends and loved ones. As abhorrent as slavery was, there were people of goodwill who just couldn't understand why their families and friends were willing to kill each other over the need to end it.

While it isn't quite the same thing, issues like gay marriage, abortion and prayer in school have so gripped a significant portion of the voting public that they cannot contemplate another point of view. Indeed, they will not countenance an opposing opinion, and they let their voices be heard every Election Day. If we don't find a way through this problem, people of good will, good intentions and with good hearts will find themselves as separated from their friends and families as those of our ancestors did over the issue of slavery.

I also understand that Kerry's inability to carry the state of Ohio made anything we did in Nevada moot, but that doesn't excuse us for the great harm I know that we have done to the people of this state. Because, by not rebuking the president for failing to keep his promise to Nevadans about Yucca Mountain, we have condoned his choice of our state as the site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

As sure as I am sitting at this computer pounding out these thoughts, the White House and the Congress will move with all dispatch to change the law, change the rules and change whatever else they have to in order to make sure that Yucca Mountain opens on time -- if not sooner. By approving his decision on Yucca Mountain, which our vote did, we have removed from Sen. Harry Reid whatever ammunition he had in telling his Senate colleagues that his state was against playing host to the deadliest poison known to man.

What were we thinking? Am I that wrong? Will Yucca Mountain actually be good for us in Nevada? Will an accident on Interstate 15 help or hurt a city that depends upon the goodwill and feelings of safety of the millions of tourists who come here each year? Obviously, I am wrong because Nevadans have not heeded the warnings of the man who has to carry the fight in the United States Senate and the people who must fight the odds against a well-financed and all-powerful nuclear power industry hell-bent on burying their mistakes in our backyard.

Wrong or not, though, I will continue to inform on this issue in the hopes that one day -- hopefully before it is too late, if we have not already reached that time -- the people with the most to lose -- that would be the folks with all that money on the Strip and all those jobs in our major industry -- will wake up. Until then, I will just assume that we continue to be naive and stupid.

Someone, please, prove me wrong.