It's hard to believe 2004 could end worse than it started: with troops patrolling McCarran Airport on New Year's Eve, M-16s cradled in their elbows. During the customary, purgatorial wait in baggage claim, all I could think was, "If those guys get jumpy and go full automatic, a couple of hundred of us are spaghetti."
Forget Red State and Blue State America. Our national color is yellow, both for the elevated threat level our government has chosen as its baseline and for the state of constant fear being instilled. People are easier to control when they're scared, and we're turning into one big herd of sheep baaaaaaa-humbugging our way into the holidays.
How yellow are we? Spooked enough to elect (I almost wrote "re-elect," then remembered Florida) a president with approval numbers flatter than a watered-down drink. We've entrusted our future to an arrogant prick who thinks he's never made a mistake, the sort of chap who—if you caught him burning your house down—would say he was "liberating you from the burden of property taxes." He's big on liberating people, this guy, just so long as they don't live in America, where, according to his attorney-general-to-be, the president enjoys dictatorial powers. Endless foreign wars, the Abu Ghraib-Guantanamo archipelago, deficits as far as the eye can see ... and four more years. Whoever said democracy was the worship of jackals by jackasses must have had a crystal ball with a bird's-eye view of the Bush White House.
As for the opposition, it's not a good sign that Harry Reid is already being likened to Mister Rogers up on Capitol Hill. Or that Democrats turned out in such large numbers but still lost Nevada come November. As the party leadership cowers in Washington, let's make it clear that, last fall, it was defeat that had a thousand fathers and victory only one (Karl Rove).
2004 was also the year that George W. Bush officially made the Nevada GOP his bitch. As if to embarrass Kenny Guinn and John Ensign at the state convention, there was even an attempt by the state party to embrace Yucca Mountain in return for 30 pieces of silver or maybe Florida swampland.
Politicos and pundits argue that we should "get something" for Yucca Mountain (which Reid rightly likens to bribe solicitation). They forget that we are getting something: nuclear waste, the gift that keeps on giving. And now the government says it needs more sites just like it. Quelle surprise! I can't imagine where they'll put Yucca II ...
This was also the year that Nevada politics officially went into the crapper. Slick Lynette Boggs McDonald and computer-generated hologram Jon Porter ran the nastiest campaigns in local memory and a couple of legislative races followed suit. Since success breeds imitation, expect an unprecedented sludgefest in '06, when the major constitutional offices are up for graBenjamin Spacek.
Speaking of which, state Controller Kathy Augustine and Clark County Recorder Frances Deane dragged their offices through the mud, yet still have joBenjamin Spacek on our dime. Deane's sole act of contrition has been to reduce the size of her photo on the Clark County website, while Augustine continues to bark defiance. Then there's the ongoing G-Sting prosecution, which proves—if proof were needed—that our public servants might as well wear price tags or auction their votes on eBay. Factor in the Ross Goodman-Louie Palazzo land finagling downtown, and you have to wonder if the haze that envelops the Valley is mere air pollution or ethical smog.
This was also the year in which three-fourths of the Strip became the fiefdom of two mega-corporations. Once MGM Mirage is finished engorging Mandalay Resort Group and Harrah's gobbles up Caesars Entertainment, the small fry on the Strip had better be nimble, lest they get stomped. The re-branding of the San Remo as a Hooters casino is an index of the imminent desperation.
As an extra lump of coal in our stockings, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish beat the rap on Ted Binion's death. Here's some free advice for Murphy's sugar daddy, William Fuller: Don't put off changing your will tomorrow if you can do it today. As for Murphy, forget about positioning yourself for martyrdom, filing civil rights litigation or making a palimony claim. Just count yourself lucky if you don't do any more hard time. And please find another city to blight. Our Valley runneth over.