OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING …

Ensign's marital indiscretion

Publisher Sherman Frederick writes:

I never -- ever -- saw it coming. Nevada's No. 1 Republican office holder, U. S. Sen. John Ensign admitted to an affair today. It lasted nine months. Details remain skimpy, though you can bet that won't last.

He and his wife have worked through it.

There's no sugar coating this development. It tarnishes John's image, makes him a less effective advocate for GOP office seekers down ticket and certainly ends any hope -- slight though it may have been -- of him making a national run for president.

I like John as a person and a senator and this "news" won't change that. I suspect Nevadans will forgive him when/if he runs again. But, let's be realistic: it won't be forgotten. That's a rule of human nature that applies to all, high-profile or no.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/

All we need are 3.4 million new visitors

Business writer Benjamin Spillman writes:

Here's a good buzz kill to drop next time you hear someone talking about "green shoots" or how "the worst is over" when it comes to the local economy.

Just say, "200,000."

That's how many people Las Vegas needs to attract annually for every 1,000 hotel rooms to maintain its existing occupancy rate of nearly 90 percent.

And according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Las Vegas will have 17,000 more hotel rooms in 2011 than the approximately 140,000 it has today.

That means an economic recovery for the industry requires not just a return to the pre-recession level of about 39 million visitors annually.

It will take another 3.4 million new visitors on top of that to maintain the same occupancy rates as in the past.

Of course, with Boyd Gaming's Echelon, Fontainebleau and the new tower at Caesars Palace in various stages of suspended animation there's a good chance new room development won't meet projections.

Either way, we're a long way from what reasonable observers would consider recovery.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/business/

Assault on tobacco -- and free speech

Editor Thomas Mitchell writes:

We said it. The New York Times said it. So it must be true.

Congress and President Obama, reportedly still struggling himself to kick the habit, have given us a new law creating sweeping regulations of the tobacco industry. These include seriously questionable abridgements of the First Amendment rights of tobacco marketers.

On Monday an R-J editorial quoted the makers of Philip Morris cigarettes as saying, "We have expressed First Amendment reservations about certain provisions, including those that could restrict a manufacturer's ability to communicate truthful information."

The law would forbid tobacco peddlers from claiming their goods are safer because of lower levels or tar and nicotine, something the government pressed for in the first place, presumably because they are safer.

The bill also prohibits tobacco products from being touted on billboards within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds to limit the exposure of children to the existence of one of this nation's first profitable exports.

Also on Monday, the NYT quoted Daniel L. Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, saying, "Anybody looking at this in a fair way would say the effort here is not just to protect kids, which is a substantial interest of the country, but to make it virtually impossible to communicate with anybody. We think this creates very serious problems for the First Amendment."

Even the ACLU is weighing in on the side of the tobacco companies. The Times quoted ACLU representative Michael Macleod-Ball: "The answer here is to provide countervailing messages. Discourage smoking, rather than restricting this form of speech that has not been shown to have a sufficiently close nexus with youth smoking."

The answer is never a gag, but always more speech. A free people should be persuaded, not hoodwinked through ignorance.

Remember when speech was free?

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/

Missing Gans info leads to speculation

Columnist John L. Smith writes:

Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy went to great pains to assure the press that impersonator Danny Gans didn't die of a drug overdose. Instead, Murphy said, Gans's death was ruled accidental and related to the combined toxic effect of Dilaudid with the cardiovascular disease the performer suffered from.

Murphy didn't make available the amount of drug in Gans' system, and no one associated with the inquiry seems anxious to make that simple, essential information available to the public.

While I think Murphy is a consummate professional, some readers view his actions differently. I've received a number of calls from people who claim Gans wasn't always the clean-living guy his friends have described in the days since his death.

One stinging question they've asked is whether others who die under similar circumstances are labeled "drug overdoses" and not victims of drug toxicity.

The shame of all this speculation is that it masks the greater tragedy: A wife has lost her husband, children have lost their dad.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith/