Jon Ralston on the deceitful, conniving, hypocritical start to Gov. Jim Gibbons’ term … and that’s just the first minute

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.

Kenny Guinn is guilty of being petty and vindictive in stealing an appointment that was rightfully Jim Gibbons' to make, flouting tradition and decorum. But the new governor is guilty of intentionally misleading the public, sending his minions out to lie for him, trying to subvert the duties of another constitutional officer, slandering a dedicated public servant and, worst of all, using the public's security fears as cover for a political ploy.

One is a sad misdemeanor by an outgoing governor who is, to use a word he once reserved for the Gang of 63, irrelevant. The other is a scary series of felonies by a new governor whose administration is only a week old.

Gibbons' first act was to be sworn in during a secretive midnight ritual in his living room, complete with coffee table clock counting the seconds and a tardy wife he had to coax to his side so he could become governor as close to midnight as possible. But why all the cloak and dagger stuff?

Gibbons, through his mouthpieces, insisted this was done to ensure the state was secure, to allow the newly minted governor (12 seconds after midnight) to make public safety appointments. That never made a lot of sense, even for the security-obsessed Gibbons. And we now know the clandestine swearing-in is being used as the legal predicate for overturning a late-term Guinn appointment, Keith Munro, to the state's most important regulatory body, the Gaming Control Board.

In a stunning irony, the governor asserts that he was ensuring the gaming post was apolitical by employing an unprecedented political stunt after a previous unprecedented maneuver - trying to persuade the secretary of state to abdicate his constitutional duties to sign Munro's appointment papers - had failed.

Most in the public don't care and are not affected by such legerdemain. But the actions may well be indicative of what's to come, a sign of the character - or lack thereof - of a governor who has a lot to prove after a campaign that will be remembered for being full of sound and a furious woman, and one that signified that saying next to nothing can actually work.

But why? Why not just be honest with the public, say you believe Guinn overstepped his bounds, that it has nothing to do with Munro's credentials (he is a respected lawyer and was chief of staff to Guinn) and that you must put your own person in the slot?

Instead, Gibbons quietly approached then-Secretary of State Dean Heller late last year and importuned him not to sign Munro's appointment papers. Heller refused. Then, the new governor concocted this cover story and held the midnight mass, praying no one would figure out the real purpose but perhaps forgetting an Associated Press reporter would report the ticking clock and late first lady.

I kept hearing whispers in late December that the secret ceremony was designed to undo the Munro appointment, so I inquired but was told by a spokesman that Gibbons "has no plans to intercede in Munro's appointment." Then, after the swearing-in Gibbons inserted the eminently qualified Randy Sayre to replace Munro. Gibbons' spokespeople have been repeating the mantra that it "wasn't the intention" of the midnight machinations to pave the way to undo Munro's appointment. That has been rendered laughable, and the spokesmen were either out of the loop and lied to by their boss or they deceived the media.

There are real, murky, legal issues here that may never be resolved if Munro goes gently. What is not cloudy, though, is that the Gibbons team also has decided that to elevate the importance of their desperate measures they will have to diminish Munro, going so far as to imply he could corrupt gaming control because he is a political hack - this after Gibbonsites congratulated Munro late last year for his appointment.

This is nothing short of tendentious calumny, designed to justify to the public why the new, apolitical, anti-Establishment governor had to do what he did. This would be funny if we didn't have to live here.

Gibbons deserves the benefit of the doubt on his policies before his Jan. 22 State of the State speech - perhaps contrary to his hackneyed and hollow campaign rhetoric, the address will inspire and persuade. But if the first few days - perhaps the first few seconds - of his administration are a harbinger, the slogan of this administration may well be a perversion of an aphorism made famous by Gibbons' political hero, Ronald Reagan:

Do not trust because you cannot verify.