Sunday, April 1, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.
At some point, someone has to look at the couple inhabiting the Governor's Mansion and wonder: Who are these people?
Jim and Dawn Gibbons have become a certifiable freak show, a nationally exposed embarrassment, a first couple without the first clue of how to conduct themselves. At a time when Nevada is touting itself as a presidential sweepstakes powerhouse and rapidly maturing state, we have an inept Richard Nixon and an addled Marie Antoinette. The Jim and Dawn show, live from Gibbonsville, plays almost daily, with unending policy silliness and ethical transgressions.
The latest revelation is that of all the consultants in all of Northern Nevada, a defense contractor paid Dawn Gibbons $35,000 to help it while then-Rep. Jim Gibbons was trying to secure the firm a piece of federal largesse. The Wall Street Journal broke the story last week and also reminded readers of the ongoing federal probe of the governor for accepting favors from pal Warren Trepp and of how entities connected to the family's political efforts have funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Dawn Gibbons' business.
The Gibbons family values apparently include using their political positions to make money, helping their friends in exchange for favors, such as the cruise that Trepp took the couple on a couple of years ago, and hiding their misdeeds until forced to reveal them - they were prodded to disclose both that trip with Trepp and that shadowy legal defense fund set up as a private trust. Who knows what else is lurking out there?
It's not as if this latest Wall Street Journal revelation has come in a vacuum, either. The Gibbons administration, with its prequel featuring a scandalous trifecta at the end of the campaign and early months characterized by fumbling, bumbling and stumbling, has been a nonstop embarrassment. Punctuated by memorable comic moments - such as the first lady's $10,000 inaugural ensemble and the governor's inability to explain the centerpiece of his education agenda - the Jim and Dawn show has generated almost unfathomable talk of recall and resignation.
Who are these people?
In trying to answer that question, the family's D.C.-based lawyer, Abbe Lowell, showed last week that he has a gift for comedy. Why would Sierra Nevada Corp., which developed a helicopter radar-landing system, hire the congressman's wife, who used to be a florist and wedding chapel owner? "As many Nevadans know, Mrs. Gibbons is a highly regarded consultant on state matters," Lowell said in a statement given to KLAS Channel 8.
Really? You would be hard-pressed to find more than one person in the Governor's Mansion who agrees with that statement, much less "many Nevadans." But Lowell then dug the hole deeper.
"As a successful consultant, Mrs. Gibbons has had a number of clients, including the Education First campaign, developer Mike Dermody, Jim Gibbons for Governor, the Sierra Nevada Corp. and Justice Hardesty for Supreme Court," the statement continued. I wonder how tough that was to get a paying gig with campaigns connected to her husband (Education First is the initiative campaign both sponsored). And Dermody surely must have appreciated all the work that Mrs. Gibbons did for him because he and his family were enthusiastic supporters of her doomed congressional bid last year.
Finally, Lowell plays the wronged woman card: "Of course, a professional woman is entitled to pursue professional projects based on her own skills and experience without the assumption that her work is illegitimate solely because of her husband's position."
So any cynics should be ashamed: Dawn Gibbons was hired by her husband's campaigns and the rest, including Sierra Nevada, because of her impressive array of public relations and marketing skills, especially vis a vis the "demonstration of a hand-held emergency-communications device for sale to casinos and state and local governments," as the Journal reported. Yes, she was uniquely qualified - and her husband's job was irrelevant.
Who are these people?
No matter what kind of lawyering or spinning is applied to this situation or the many other gaffes or scandals besetting this infant administration, the momentum toward disaster appears unstoppable. Every day, Gibbons aides and friends must pick up the newspapers and pray that there isn't a new policy flip-flop, gubernatorial gaffe or possible ethical or legal violation. A 29 percent approval rating is weak; but could it actually go lower?
Pretty soon people are going to start looking at the mansion and wondering not just who the Gibbonses are, but how we let them get there. And, more importantly, how long do we plan to let them stay?
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