Sherm Frederick must have loved Fantasyland as a child because he apparently loves living in it now.
Most people mature out of their childhood dreams and learn to live as adults in a world that, quite frankly, needs more adults. It is painfully obvious to me that either Sherm has failed to grow up or, far worse, he has grown up to be an unhappy fellow whose only shot at happiness must come at someone else's expense.
I know I almost promise every week not to even mention Sherm's name because people - and that includes me - are sick and tired of reading about the Sherm-Brian show. I know it but I just can't help it. That's because he insists on writing such drivel each week that it cries out for - no demands - a reaction.
The good news is that now that the Las Vegas Sun is delivered to the same people as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the readers have the benefit of two separate newspapers and at least two points of view. Sherm's and mine. His effort to fill space last week in the newspaper that is delivered with the Las Vegas Sun is a case in point.
Most people probably couldn't understand why Sherm tried to diminish the state's senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid, by comparing Harry unfavorably with one of the giants of the 20th century, Winston Churchill. Here's a news flash: Most people on this planet, if not all but a handful, would not compare favorably to the man who talked England through World War II and led that small nation toward an Allied victory against all odds.
But that doesn't mean that most people are not valuable, have no worth and aren't significant contributors to the betterment of mankind. I don't know what it is that sticks in Sherm's craw when it comes to Sen. Reid, but it sure isn't healthy for Nevada. The idea that Sherm and his newspaper are constantly trying to soften Harry up with stories that aren't quite accurate and columns that are churlish and childish is inimical to the best interests of all Nevadans who need a man like Harry in the top spot in the U.S. Senate.
Sherm is either dreaming or trying to force a bad nightmare on Nevadans if he thinks the voters are going to turn away the one man who single-handedly can keep Yucca Mountain from happening and all other manner of ill-fortune from visiting the Silver State. As majority leader, Sen. Reid determines what gets on the Senate agenda and what doesn't. It is as simple as that.
But I digress. The meat - as rancid as it may have been - of Sherm's rant last week was that Harry Reid is no great statesman in the image of a Churchill. Well, duh. Great statesmen are the people we hope to elect to the White House. How did we do there? Great lawmakers are an entirely different breed. And Harry Reid is among the best of that breed.
We all know we live in a political world in which there is nothing a person can do that is going to be appreciated by all of the people. Polarization is not just for sunglasses. It has happened to American politics - unfortunately - and until we get over this snit we have been in for the past two decades we need the kind of people who are thick-skinned enough and clever enough to toil in the vineyards of overly partisan politics.
Harry Reid is one of those people. There is probably nobody in the political world on the national scene who has a better inside game for political battle than Sen. Reid. He was trained, practically from infancy, by his mentor, Mike O'Callaghan, and he has been in the trenches since.
Is Harry a master of the English language? Not really. Most times he is too blunt - not wrong, just blunt - to win any awards for statesmanship. But when it comes to the sausage-making that has always characterized the art of legislation, there are few better or more skilled than Nevada's favorite son.
If Sherm were being honest with his readers he would have compared Harry with other great leaders in the Senate - Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Mike Mansfield of Montana. Not one of them was a statesman like Churchill , but each of them was a leader in the world's greatest deliberative body.
The last thing Sen. Reid needs is a defense of his actions from me. Nevadans know Harry and they know - whether or not they agree with his politics - that he works hard. He works tirelessly, intelligently and continually on behalf of all Americans and Nevadans in particular.
Nevadans know that with Harry calling the shots, the odds are in our favor. At least to the point where we will get an even break rather than be played for a sucker as we have been every time Sherm's political idols were in charge.
Just once, Sherm, I would like to see you take off your green-colored - as in money - glasses and think about what is best for the people of the Silver State. Not everyone works for billionaire out-of-state owners who care not about us in Nevada but only about how much money they can take out of this state.
Not everyone works for people who hate the very idea of government and who would, if they could, make government go away so that hundreds of millions of people could be beholden to the monied few. And not everyone has such a feeling of entitlement - presumably because of whom they work for and the power that is conferred on them by the newspaper they control - that they can feel free to diminish good and decent people either for sport or some other malicious pursuit.
In fact, most people are just the opposite. They are humble and honorable folks who want to do the right thing for the right reasons. What is amazing is that the folks at the R-J think they can change that elemental fact of human nature. And it upsets them when they can't. And that, more than anything else, has to eat at Sherm's very core. He wants the whole world to think just like him.
How scary is that?
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