Sunday, May 28, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.
Sherm Frederick has a fascination with women's dresses.
There were two things I could have taken from the Review-Journal publisher's column last Sunday. The first one is that he doesn't like Nevada's senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid. Despite what he said in his attempt to read the tea leaves of Nevada politics, it was made abundantly clear that Harry is not Sherm's favorite U.S. senator.
If I had to make a guess, it would be that Rick Santorum, the darling of the ultra-far right and a man who may go down in flames in the November election because his constituents have figured him out, is more to the R-J leader's liking.
I am still perplexed as to the reason Sherm tried to gut the good senator when there are 4 1/2 years left on his current term. We all know that a year is forever in politics, so what makes the man think that what is or isn't happening in 2006 will have any real bearing on the kind and quality of senator the voters will want in 2010?
Maybe Sherm just didn't have anything else to write about. Maybe he really didn't like his walk in the desert with Harry - for the life of me I can't imagine what would cause Harry to take a walk anywhere with Sherm, let alone the desert! Whatever the reason, the hit piece was not very manly because it attacked the good senator on the wrong issues and on issues he was wrong to bring up.
First, there was a not-so-subtle reference to Harry's religion. Who does that in this day and age? Everyone knows that Sen. Reid is a devout Mormon who believes deeply and consistently in the kind of family values that have served this country well since the beginning of our democracy.
As a pro-life Democrat, Harry has stood up to his pro-choice constituents every time he puts his name on the ballot. And while I am sure some Democrats won't vote for him because of his deeply held moral beliefs, he has never wavered, even though doing so could have saved him sleepless nights as election day drew near.
The truth is that Sen. Reid is the kind of politician our Founding Fathers envisioned - a man who holds strong moral and religious beliefs and a man who is guided by that moral code. But, also, a man who knows the difference between his personal morality and the oath he has taken in which he swore to represent all the people and act in the best interests of his country. Simply put, to attack a man through his religion is not only unfair, it is un-American.
Sherm tried to show his bona fides by saying that his newspaper had supported Harry every time he ran for the Senate. As if that inoculates a person when he expresses bad taste, bad genes, and bad manners. Shame on Sherm.
At a time when the political heat in this country is so high that the peoples' business cannot get done and normally decent people can't even talk to one another without some political hack taking them to task, what are Sherm and his newspaper trying to do? Make things that much worse?
The least he could have done was tell his readers the truth. This is where I come in. Thanks to the latest amendment to our Joint Operating Agreement, I get to be the one-man truth squad for Sherm and all his wacko writers at the other paper. They tell it the way they want it, however wrong that may be, and I get to set the facts straight.
For instance: "The Review-Journal has endorsed Sen. Reid every time he has run for the U.S. Senate." So says Sherm. But the facts say something entirely different. Not that the truth ever got in the way of an R-J diatribe, but the truth is supposed to be that sacred trust between a newspaper and its readers.
If Sherm would fib about something as easily ascertainable as the R-J's endorsement record, what else would that newspaper say that would be untrue and much harder to ascertain? For the record, the Review-Journal did endorse Harry Reid in 1992 and in 2004. However, it endorsed his opponent in 1986 and 1998.
And then to call our senior senator, who just happens to be the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, a "lily-livered coward on terrorism," is an outrageous lie. Nevadans know their senator. They know him to be one of the toughest public servants ever to be elected by the people of Nevada. Tough on crime, tough on terrorists and tough on anyone who attacks him, his family, his friends, his countrymen and the way of life that has become so important to Nevadans.
No one can claim a front seat in the fight against worldwide terrorism while Harry is aboard. The problem with that other paper is that it hasn't printed the facts in so long that it is starting to believe its own (what's another word for manure?).
There is one area where I understand the depth of Sherm's distaste. That's when he talks about Harry's support from working men and women and the unions that often represent them.
It is no secret that the R-J hates unions. So much so that it has refused to endorse any politician who runs for office who is supported by, been a member of or even says something nice about union men and women. And that is regardless of the eight ball who may be running against an otherwise qualified candidate! I understand it, but I cannot fathom the reasoning behind such hatred.
I don't know what possessed Sherm to go after Harry Reid. Perhaps he is trying to soften him up for the 2010 elections. What I do know is that the last time the Review-Journal went on the offensive like this, it convinced a majority of Nevadans to support the challenger against Nevada's then-senior senator, Howard Cannon.
With Cannon out of the picture and out of seniority in the U.S. Senate, all kinds of bad things happened and no good things happened to Nevada. We got no money and no respect. What we did get was this 25-year fight by the federal government to put the nation's high-level radioactive waste in our Yucca Mountain.
Had the R-J stayed out of the fight, or at least acted in the best interests of Nevadans by supporting a good man with gobs of seniority, there would be no Yucca Mountain and Nevada would be near the top of the heap of federal dollar recipients instead of near the bottom.
With Harry's new job as minority leader and, dare I say it, possibly as majority leader, Nevada is well on its way to the kind of respectful position among its sister states that its growth, its vision and its people deserve. Unless, of course, Sherm Frederick gets his way and convinces Nevadans to do the dumbest thing they have ever done - again - and send Harry home from the highest elected position a Nevadan has ever achieved.
So, that's the first thing a person could take from Sherm's column last week.
The second thing one might get from reading through his rant is that the head of the other paper knows a lot about transvestites and cross-dressers. Maybe there is a reason.
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