Jon Ralston thinks New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has a pretty good take on Goodman

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007 | 7:18 a.m.

You can take the mob out of the thug, but you can't take the thug out of the thug.

And now it is on display for all in the country - nay, the world - to see. If you don't believe what I have been saying for years about Mayor Oscar Goodman's sensibility - or lack thereof - then perhaps you will listen to New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. This week Herbert wrote a column after spending some time out here in Oscar's Town, in which he concluded, among other things, that Goodman sets a "tone of systematic, institutionalized degradation" of women.

No, Herbert was not referring to Goodman's crass use of showgirls as props wherever he goes. Nor was he referring to the mayor's continued love affair with the misogynistic mob culture. No, he was referring to Goodman's advocacy in an interview for "magnificent brothels" that could bring the city "tremendous" benefits.

Herbert's column was published Tuesday, the day before a group 's news conference planned for today to publicize a State Department-sponsored study of prostitution and sex trafficking in Nevada. Herbert interviewed a number of people, including the author of the study and those familiar with the seamier side of the sex industry.

And, alas, he talked to Goodman, who apparently did his usual shtick, which fools and entertains most of the local media, but not the Timesman.

"The report explores what Oscar Goodman doesn't appear to understand: the horrendous toll that prostitution, legal or illegal, takes on the women and girls involved," Herbert wrote. (The full column is published in today's Sun.)

My guess is a lot of women in the valley don't find much to laugh about in Herbert's scathing column, headlined in the Times, "City as Predator , " and with the first sentence: "There is probably no city in America where women are treated worse than in Las Vegas."

One person not laughing is former Mayor Jan Jones, a true local success story who went from entrepreneur to Her Honor to Harrah's executive.

"He makes us look like idiots," she fulminated Tuesday. "It's demeaning to women. It's demeaning to the city. It's disrespectful to everything we've worked to become over the last two decades."

Magnificent. That's what he said the downtown brothels could be. Magnificent.

"It's a terrible thing to do to Las Vegas," Jones lamented. "It plays into every stereotype, every mischaracterization, every bad joke."

Just as Goodman's mayoralty has done. And the study to be released today will only add to those stereotypes, which will be taken seriously elsewhere.

The study is the result of a 2 1/2-year investigation led by a clinical psychologist named Melissa Farley, who claims to have found human rights violations in the brothels and - cover your eyes - a thriving illegal prostitution industry here in Oscar's Town.

Farley, too, was interviewed by Herbert for his column, and she had this reaction to Goodman's comments: "He's a piece of work."

Where have we heard that before?

Herbert's column - and I shudder to think what the upcoming installments may contain - reveal not just the dichotomy of Goodman, the comical mob mouthpiece, but also the duality of Las Vegas. We want to have it both ways - maturing, more sophisticated city but also one where what happens here, stays here. People want to think we are evolving, growing up - and yet Goodman was always a step backward, to the supposedly halcyon days when the mob ran the town.

His solipsistic ways would be easier to take if he had channeled his unquestionable energy into productive pursuits such as helping to take the city forward rather than wrenching us back to the days when his clientele thrived. Instead of rolling over for developers, seeking every headline he could get and threatening to whack any critics, Goodman could have tried to help the city break out of the stereotypes Jones mentioned.

Alas, he may simply have been the wrong man at the wrong time. We could be hearing about the many women who have not made a living here by baring their breasts or lying down for money. We could have heard more about Heather Murren and Barbara Buckley and Pat Mulroy, women who have accomplished much more than Goodman will in three terms but will never be valued by him the way his showgirls are.

I wonder how another woman who also could be mentioned in any litany of accomplished Las Vegas women feels about the mayor's international embarrassment this week: Someone ought to ask Carolyn Goodman that question.