Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.
Gov. Jim Gibbons, in a desperate attempt to divert attention from his own failed leadership, engaged in petulant theatrics by first demanding an audience with President Barack Obama in Las Vegas and then declining the president’s offer to meet Tuesday at McCarran International Airport.
“While I appreciate the offer, I am not interested in a handshake and a hello from President Obama, I am interested in an apology and plan to undo the damage the president did,” Gibbons said.
How embarrassing. It is Gibbons, not Obama, who should be doing the apologizing.
Gibbons continues to distort a comment the president made this year in which Obama warned companies that had received federal bailout money not to take tax-supported junkets to Las Vegas and elsewhere. Obama was looking out for the American taxpayer. Gibbons’ reaction was the type one would expect from a grade school playground, not the governor’s office.
In the governor’s world of twisted logic, he believes Obama’s statement has wrecked Nevada’s tourist-based economy. Nothing is further from the truth.
As we have said before, the real culprits were the failed economic policies of former President George W. Bush. One of Bush’s loyal servants in Congress was Gibbons.
As for undoing the “damage” the president did, Gibbons is picking a fight with the wrong administration.
We can think of many reasons why Gibbons should apologize to Nevadans, but one of the most compelling is for his support of Bush policies that fueled record-high home foreclosures, set off rising unemployment and forced taxpayers to bail out Wall Street.
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