From Citizen Outreach:

By: Chuck Muth

HE SAID/HE SAID

Once again the state of Nevada in general, and the Republican Party in particular, find themselves caught up in yet another Gov. Jim Gibbons-related controversy. This time it has to do with the governor’s appointment of former U.S. Government Printer Bruce James to head the newly-created Nevada Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission.

James was officially appointed last Wednesday at a press conference in the governor’s Carson City office. I wrote about the appointment here in Nevada News & Views on Thursday. Later that day, former Nevada Republican Party Chairman John Mason read that report while attending a conference in Puerto Rico. At that’s when the spit hit the spam.

In the interest for full disclosure before we go any further, please not that I once worked for Chairman Mason as the party’s executive director, and later as a consultant to the Nevada GOP.

As most of you have probably already read, an incident allegedly occurred involving Mr. James and a member of Mr. Mason’s family in Washington, DC, about five years ago. I personally won’t get into the specifics of the incident unless or until Mr. Mason decides to go public with it. However, I can confirm that Mr. Mason called me at home from Puerto Rico immediately after sending an email about the incident to me, the governor and a third party. That email was sent to me in confidence, and at Mr. Mason’s request I have not released it to anyone but the governor’s press secretary.

For my part, I will only confirm at this point that Mr. Mason does not believe Mr. James should head up the SAGE Commission. He has reminded the governor of the Washington-incident and given him an opportunity to withdraw the nomination, to avoid what Mr. Mason believes will be another public embarrassment for the Gibbons administration – something this governor needs like the proverbial hole in the head.

As of late yesterday afternoon, my understanding is that Mr. James categorically denies the allegation and the governor is sticking with the nomination.

Mr. Mason has yet to make the full allegation public with supporting evidence. So what we have here at this point is a classic he said/he said. And in such a situation, the various parties’ credibility is called into question. In that regard, Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison wrote the following yesterday…

“I still remember how John Mason lied to me in 2000 when he said that as a 16-year-old he was a member of the Surfaris and recorded the hit ‘Wipe Out.’ And how he told the Wall Street Journal he remembered recording it. Except he didn’t record it. He was a member of a group of fake Surfaris. But that’s not the story he told for so many years, until the Wall Street Journal caught the lie in 2004 when Mason was running for the Nevada Supreme Court.”

In response to that column about a matter which occurred over 40 years ago, Mr. Mason forwarded to me a follow-up investigative report by Dennis Myers of Reno News & Review published on August 26, 2004.

I will note that Mr. Mason says he never talked to Mr. Myers about this column. I should also point out that the rather liberal Mr. Myers is usually anything but sympathetic to Republicans. With that in the back of your mind, here are some excerpts of what Mr. Myers discovered about allegations that Mr. Mason had lied about his involvement with a 1960s band called “The Surfaris”…

“For many years, Nevada Supreme Court candidate John Mason told a tale about how he once played guitar with the Surfaris, the 1960s two-hit-wonder rock ‘n’ roll band. In more recent years, Mason, an Incline Village attorney and former Republican state chairman, has been plagued by charges—most spectacularly in a front-page Wall Street Journal story in 2001—that he made it all up. . . . But a RN&R inquiry strongly suggests that Mason was a Surfari for a time, and he was telling the truth all along.”

Myers goes on to explain how the Wall Street Journal got the story wrong in 2001. You can read the full account HERE

Myers concludes his investigation in the matter thusly:

“Whatever other faults the 1963 Surfaris tour may have had, every indication is that Mason signed on as a member of the group with a reputable producer who had the legal right to the Surfaris name, toured as a Surfari in good faith and has every right to assert the claim.”

So in reporting on the Mason/James he said/he said we now have a conflicting columnist said/columnist said situation which neither affirms nor discounts Mr. Mason’s credibility. So we’ll all just have to wait until he decides to speak publicly about the matter and/or provides some kind of proof or evidence of his allegations against Mr. James.

The only good news in this for the governor is that the Mason vs. James brouhaha has taken the spotlight off the Gibbons vs. Gibbons divorce. For now.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“I don’t know what to do with him. None of us do.”

- SAGE Commission chairman Bruce James on former Nevada GOP chief John Mason and his threat to make allegations about Mr. James public if Gov. Gibbons doesn’t remove James from the SAGE Commission, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/13/08