Editorial: Gibbons plays pitiful victim

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 | 7:33 a.m.

Nevadans have been waiting months for Jim Gibbons to come forward and fully answer questions about his activities as a congressman that were first raised by The Wall Street Journal.

Clipped sound bites, beginning when Gibbons was a candidate for governor and carrying through after he was elected, are what the public has received instead.

Now the Gibbons free fall is continuing, in even worse form. The Reno Gazette-Journal on Monday disclosed the governor's latest response.

"I have heard that the Democrats have paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written," Gibbons told reporter Ray Hagar.

The paranoid governor did not reveal the source of this rumor that a spokesman for The Wall Street Journal called "baseless." (On Tuesday, Gibbons tried his hand at damage control, telling the Associated Press, "I don't give it [the rumor] any credence.")

Gibbons had also told the Gazette-Journal that The Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the stories was brought to Nevada by the campaign of his gubernatorial opponent, state Sen. Dina Titus. In denying this allegation, Titus told the Gazette-Journal : "I think the stress is getting to the governor. Now he's looking for a conspiracy."

The stories date from November, when the newspaper wrote about an expenses-paid Caribbean cruise that Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, took at the invitation of Warren Trepp. As a congressman, the Journal reported, Gibbons helped the Reno businessman win "millions of dollars in classified federal software contracts ... "

An FBI investigation into whether Gibbons accepted gifts from Trepp is under way. Follow-up stories in the Journal included one about Dawn Gibbons receiving consulting fees from Sierra Nevada Corp., another Reno-area defense contractor that Gibbons helped obtain government contracts.

Las Vegas Sun stories also have raised questions about Gibbons' ethics, including one by columnist Jon Ralston about Gibbons setting up a secret legal defense fund.

Gibbons' comments to the Gazette-Journal followed an interview he gave last week to a Reno talk-radio host. "The media (have) made a sport of going after me," Gibbons said, according to a transcript of the show . "They think they are going to drive me out of office and I got news for them: It ain't gonna happen."

Passing on rumors. Alleging conspiracies. Attacking the media. All standard fare for politicians caught up in scandals. It's too bad Gibbons hasn't learned from President Richard Nixon and other public figures. History has proved that it is crazy for officials to deflect or avoid issues instead of stepping forward with straight answers.