Letter: Chanos was out of line in attacking Buckley

Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006 | 9:13 a.m.

This letter is in response to a recent article in the Sun and the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston." The subject involved Nevada Attorney General George Chanos' recent 19-page legal opinion on a law, enacted during the last legislative session and allowing for the importation of affordable drugs from Canadian pharmacies, as being invalid. During the program, his accusatory statements were directed toward Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, who was instrumental in the initial creation of the bill to provide the availability of low-cost drugs for our senior citizens.

The attorney general's relentless, atrocious verbal attacks toward the assemblywoman were arrogant, truculent and condescending, as he questioned her political and legal skills toward the adoption of the bill and made absurd comments that "the bill was fatally flawed" and that "she has perpetrated a cruel hoax on the senior population." Repeatedly, her level of competency was challenged.

Barbara Buckley did not solely consolidate the enactment of this legislation. Presumptively, I must conclude the other capable political peers within the Nevada Legislature who voted its successful passage, along with the legal counselors who assisted in the bill draft process, and the governor who signed and enacted the bill into law, must have jointly perpetrated a "cruel hoax" on Nevada seniors.

If this is his inauguration into the political arena, he has selected the wrong issue and the wrong group of constituents.

Jacqueline Taylor

Las Vegas

The writer is former chief administrative officer at University Medical Center and former member of the Nevada State Board of Health.