First lady abandoned, but still devoted

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:38 PM PDT

As our scandal-laden governor pushes to have his soon-to-be former wife of 22 years evicted from the governor’s mansion, citing tax dollars as his primary motive, the Nevada media has shown remarkable restraint on just what it has to say about what will undoubtedly be an ugly, bitter affair.

Affair is a good word to use here. The governor’s spinmeisters have all but painted first lady Dawn Gibbons as a distraction, that their marriage crumbled because the thrill is gone after more than two decades.

Gang Gibbons would have us believe the marriage simply disintegrated, grew stale, lost its spice. So why the need for a closed courtroom during divorce proceedings? What’s to hide? Is this even constitutional? If so, how many other high-powered people will seek closed hearings to hide their dirty little secrets?

The governor has been involved with the wife of a Reno doctor. She shall go unnamed to save her husband public humiliation. Team Gibbons will say she’s simply a friend. A friend he spends an inordinate amount of time with, a friend who asked her husband for a divorce a few months before the governor dropped the bomb on Dawn – and a friend who looks a lot like a certain Las Vegas cocktail waitress that accused Jim Gibbons of assaulting her in a hotel parking garage in 2006, when he was locked in a tight gubernatorial battle with Democratic State Sen. Dina Titus.

But while the media refuses to get into the nitty gritty of what went down between the governor and first lady, they certainly keep telling us taxpayers we’re being screwed as long as Dawn Gibbons is in the mansion.

Here’s why they are wrong. Just like a man accused of crime is considered innocent until proven guilty, married people are considered married until a judge signs their divorce petition.

In other words, Dawn Gibbons is still the first lady of Nevada. In a conversation with her attorney, former Washoe County District Attorney Cal Dunlap, he said Dawn continues to do great work in the battle against methamphetamine abuse in Nevada.

She continues her passionate fight to help autistic children lead normal lives. “She takes this position very seriously,” said Dunlap. “And she’s very good at it despite what her husband has done. He spurned her. He abandoned her.”

As for tax dollars, what will cost us more: Paying the same amount we already pay – several hundred thousand dollars a year – whether Dawn Gibbons lives there or not? Or paying that money plus a whole lot more for her to drive – with a security detail – from the Gibbons’ rural Washoe home to the governor’s mansion where she will continue to perform as first lady until the divorce is final?

In the meantime, Dawn has offered to move into the mansion’s guest home and access just those parts of the mansion she needs in which to perform her duties. This demonstrates she’s acting in good faith – and with a good deal more class than is her husband.

Until Divorce Day arrives, Dawn Gibbons feels safe at the mansion. If a woman deserves anything, she deserves to feel safe.

Jim Gibbons is being pressured by party loyalists to get Dawn out of the mansion. How many scandals can one administration handle, they ask.

Common sense tells us now would be a great time for the governor to show some human decency and be civil to his wife, in public and in private.

Until then, we can all remember what that Las Vegas cocktail waitress looks like and perhaps compare notes when we’re introduced to the “new” first lady.

Then we’ll know if Dawn Gibbons’ shock was genuine when she learned her husband wanted a divorce – or if the governor’s mouthpieces were telling us the truth about the marriage succumbing to a long drift apart.

Members of the Elko Daily Free Press Editorial Board and writers of the editorials are Rhonda Zuraff, Jeffry Mullins and Doug McMurdo.

Brian Plumb is the community adviser.

I just want to say you’re dead on. Damon did an excellent job-once again. It appears several men in the media around here are just plain uncomfortable and keep getting hung up on the wrong points-because a penis is involved er…gender bias?

Just like sins, one of Gibbons’ missteps is no more sacred than any of his other missteps.

Again, it IS about character and integrity and not a dude’s penis, sex ,privacy,voyeurism or yellow journalism.

We need more smart questions and less queasy,hand- wringing from the media.

I might add that I subscribe completely to Steve Sebelius’s view that journalism has no business in the private lives of politicians unless their performance in office is engaged.

A few things.

One, I am not a “mainstream media writer,” inasmuch as my newspaper, CityLife, is not a mainstream media publication, nor is my blog.

Two, I carry no brief for Gov. Jim Gibbons, as you should well know. On April 3, I published a lengthy call for Gibbons to resign from office. (You can see that here.

Three, I have not apologized for any coverage. I have only stated my belief that covering the governor’s sordid private life without a nexus to his public conduct is, in my view, improper. You are free to disagree with that view, as Hugh Jackson does. By the way, I recruited Hugh as a columnist for CityLife and proudly publish him every other week.

My point? I don’t mind if people disagree with me, and I have never condemned Hugh or you or anybody else for saying that Gibbons’s private life is fair game. Would that you extend the same courtesy to those who disagree with you.

Fourth, and finally, my view is this: With a host of legitimate issues suggesting Gov. Jim Gibbons is simply unfit to govern, there is simply no need to discover whether he’s been unfaithful to his wife. That story, at most, affects four people. The things I’ve written about — and will continue to chase — affect the entire state.