JIM GIBBONS, ONCE CONSIDERED A CORRUPTION-TAINTED CONGRESSMAN, IS UNDER INVESTIGATION AGAIN-- AS NEVADA'S GOVERNOR

The stench of corruption has long been part of Jim Gibbons political makeup. He's never been able to get out from under it; in fact, it just gets more and more pungent. Yesterday's Washington Post pointed out that while he was campaigning for governor of Nevada last year "the five-term Republican congressman ricocheted from scandal to scandal and from gaffe to gaffe. When he squeaked to a narrow victory with 48 percent of the vote, he hoped to be able to focus on his legislative agenda and put his problems behind him. Things have not turned out that way."

They certainly haven't. If anything, it's more likely that Governor Gibbons will be in a prison cell than it ever was that Congressman Gobbons would have been. It's just come out that the FBI is onto one of the characters who was bribing Gibbons for years. And that's right on top of last week's revelations that Gibbon's wife was getting business for a company that was paying her very well in return for her husband's patronage.

He's established a legal defense fund, hiring Jack Abramoff's lawyer. He refuses to talk to the press and just cowers in the governor's mansion with the shades drawn while the local media laughs at what a boob he's turned out to be as governor-- suggesting, for example, that Nevada could manufacture energy from coal (until someone asked him where he would get the coal, since Nevada doesn't produce any). He identified his new energy chief, whose name he didn't recall, as "someone from India." She's actually from Turkey. He wishes he had Bush's approval ratings; his own are down in Cheney/Paris Hilton territory: 29% approval.

Is that a recall you hear in the distance?


UPDATE: IS GIBBONS PREPARING FOR AN INSANITY DEFENSE?

I can't remember from my school days; which drugs make you paranoid? It does like Gibbons is ingesting one of them-- or more maybe. His behavior has been erratic... to say the least. And now he's accusing the right-wing oriented Wall Street Journal of conspiring with Democrats against him. People in Nevada think he's flipped his wig.

Gov. Jim Gibbons said on Monday he's heard a rumor that Democrats paid the Wall Street Journal to publish stories about his relations with a defense contractor and that the coverage is designed to help Democrats in the 2008 election.

Asked about rumors of a conspiracy among Democrats against him, Gibbons said he heard the same thing but did not name a source.

"I have heard that the Democrats have paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written," Gibbons said. The Journal has reported that Gibbons is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly accepting unreported gifts or payments from a Reno company that was awarded secret military contracts when Gibbons was in the U.S. House.