Sunday, July 22, 2007 | 1:19 a.m.
A ny governor who protests that politics never affects his appointments must have found a way to beat a polygraph, too.
This state has a rich history of outsiders whispering in governors' ears to slip their friends onto state boards and commissions. Some governors are more susceptible to lobbying than others; some eschew cronyism more than others.
Jim Gibbons, though, has set a new standard early in his tenure, showing himself to be remarkably ham-handed or easily influenced - or some combination thereof. Maybe it is the clumsiness that has characterized some of the choices, or maybe it is the lack of a real vetting process. But as this past week reinforced, it's amateur hour in Carson City.
The appointment of a Nye County commissioner to the Commission on Nuclear Projects and the ouster of the deputy director at McCarran International Airport from the state Homeland Commission are each astounding in their own ways. But they are part of a pattern that began as the seconds ticked past midnight on Jan. 1 and Gibbons hurried to get himself sworn in along with the man he had chosen to head the Homeland Security Department, Larry Martines.
Martines proved to be a disaster - he was criticized by other homeland security officials for not attending meetings and eventually resigned. And the rationale for the secret swearing-in - to provide a seamless transition to keep the state safe - was soon shown to be a canard as the governor employed it as a legal foundation to oust a Gaming Control Board member.
There are more examples, too. But last week's events surpassed anything that has come before in sheer incompetence. Gibbons' appointment of Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley to the nuclear projects panel was proof that the governor is detached from reality. After complaints were raised about Eastley's lack of opposition to the dump, a litmus test for past choices for that board, Gibbons acted surprised and said he would rescind the appointment if that were found to be true.
The governor's supposed ignorance, while plausible in some contexts, simply cannot be true here. To not know that Nye County elected officials have been seen as dump quislings for decades because they have proffered the inevitability argument is tantamount to pleading ignorance of rural Nevada's opposition to the South's water importation project. I can hear it now: "Well, if I find out Pat Mulroy really supports piping that rural water down there, I might not appoint her to the White Pine County Commission as I had planned ..."
Gibbons eventually was forced to reverse himself on Eastley, yet another embarrassment for the governor. It would have at least been principled to leave the appointment alone and declare that it was time to get a diversity of views on a panel that might as well be called the Commission Against Nuclear Projects.
Now juxtapose the Eastley debacle with news that the Gibbons administration was allowing the Energy Department to use Nevada water to drill for 30 days before reinstituting a cessation order. Thus did Gibbons give Democrats license to call him soft on the dump and force even Sen. John Ensign to declare his puzzlement.
Then to top off the week, Gibbons ousted Deputy Airport Director Rosemary Vassiliadis from the Homeland Security Commission. If he did this, as some have suggested, simply because she is the wife of Billy Vassiliadis (a close friend of mine, by way of disclosure), who is seen as an administration enemy, then the governor is simply vindictive and petty.
But that is beside the point here. Rosemary Vassiliadis all but runs the airport and is tasked with dealing with security at McCarran - she has the high-level government clearances that the man who once was snubbed for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee only wishes he had.
Why would Gibbons knock her off the panel when someone with her credentials and someone working at the airport - you know, one of the most likely sites for a terrorist attack to occur or be facilitated - would seem to be essential? And why cashier Vassiliadis, who was appointed more recently than many of the members, some of whom have questionable bona fides? I wonder.
I still find it hard to believe the worst that is said of Gibbons, that he took money from entrepreneur Warren Trepp, that he is corrupt. But even if the governor is not a crook, his bizarre, thoughtless approach to too many of his appointments, some of them critical, is nothing short of criminal.
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