Jon Ralston is astonished and appalled at our new governor’s ineptitude on display since his State of the State address

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 | 8:45 a.m.

This is simply too bad to be true.

I know I was defying history and a mountain of evidence when I suggested Gov. Jim Gibbons be given the benefit of the doubt before his State of the State speech. But when I said he deserved a chance and set a fairly low bar, I never thought he would manage to get under it.

The new governor already has broken his central campaign promise - "I will save you money" - and essentially has declared that he doesn't understand the "single, bold stroke" that he proposed in his address Monday. Gibbons has made it frighteningly clear that when he doesn't have a script in front of him, he is likely to say something quite astonishing.

As widely reported in the media Thursday, Gibbons attended a seminar Wednesday evening on his proposal - his proposal! - for so-called empowerment schools, an idea he apparently accepted blindly from some local dilettantes who have been promoting the idea for a couple of years. The Sun reported that Gibbons said he is "here to learn" and that he has "peripheral knowledge" of the program that he said will change Nevada's education system.

This is the stuff of Preston Sturges or even Lorne Michaels. When the administration could not provide any details of the program it supposedly is importing from Edmonton, I figured Gibbons et al. simply were keeping the plan close so it could be unfurled later. But it's not that they won't release details - it's that they don't know them.

And this is the centerpiece of his education agenda? Seriously, they can't be serious.

This would be as if a president, for example, decided to invade a country and after he announced it with great fervor and grandiose rhetoric, would attempt to justify the incursion with evanescent evidence. All right, perhaps that example doesn't work. Or it works too well.

This is not about left or right. This is not about anything but competence, or a lack thereof. A shocking lack thereof.

What is most striking about the utter lack of depth displayed so far in the Gibbons Era is that no one around him seems capable of filling the shallow pool. We knew Gibbons didn't know much about state government, that his superficial campaign with its sloganeering and simplicity might be a harbinger. So the fact that he doesn't know anything about his agenda beyond hollow rhetoric and that he actually had to attend a "class" this week on the centerpiece of his agenda should not surprise us that much. He created very low expectations from his campaign and career.

But where are the folks telling the new governor that it's a good idea to know your own budget, your own agenda? And aren't they telling him that if you don't, it's not a good idea to talk about it at all? This is not just about Gibbons; this is about a support team that appears not to fit the definition.

No longer can this be attributed to a rocky start by a rookie governor. This looks like a train wreck in progress as the cars start to, one by one, tumble off the tracks. And the real danger for any politician is not relentless criticism but unceasing caricaturing and ridicule. We are almost there.

If all of this weren't depressing enough, the only news release sent out by this administration since the State of the State was a breathless description of Dawn Gibbons' inaugural gown. Considering the first lady obviously has held sway over some key administration appointments and greatly influences her husband, this should not be surprising, albeit appalling.

I am not sure why, but I keep thinking of the Hemingway classic, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber." In that short story, a coward on safari is dominated by his castrating wife who continually makes snide references to an embarrassing incident from his past. But just as Macomber appears to have gotten beyond it and has summoned up the courage or recklessness to take on a charging buffalo, his wife shoots him in the head - apparently, but not convincingly, by accident.

I am not sure why this seems metaphorically apt for this administration. Maybe it will become clearer soon.