Charlie Waterman helped Democrats follow their hearts with passion

I bopped into the Courthouse Bar & Grill one morning for a cup of coffee and ran into the Third Street Wrecking Crew. Attorneys George Foley, Charlie Waterman and Tom Pitaro were busy carving up the news of the day and vilifying the editorial policies of Nevada's largest daily.

They looked up from their conversation and gave me grief. Foley could tell me my column was full of baloney with $5 words or the common vernacular. Waterman's criticism was like a face slap from a prickly pear. He was under my skin before I knew it. Pitaro was a punch-in-the-gut guy who sometimes missed low.

They hated the Review-Journal with a purple, seething passion. They read it to test their blood pressure.

Popping off about the column or the newspaper was my cue to sit down, shut up, and take a good-natured browbeating. I was tempted to ask the waitress if my coffee came with a cut man.

But that's what I loved about the wrecking crew. It wasn't yet 8 a.m., and they were ready to go toe-to-toe on the latest political intrigue.

Conservatives who love to call liberals wimps never met these guys -- or they'd likely have gotten their noses bloodied. The crew's charter members were staunch, brawling Democrats. They believed the government, in the right hands, was capable of improving the common good and providing opportunity for all citizens to overcome ignorance and poverty.

And now one of them has left the table.

Waterman, the seemingly indefatigable lawyer and former Clark County Democratic Party chairman, died of a heart attack Thursday. He was 79.

At a time most attorneys are chasing golf balls in retirement, Waterman practiced full time, kept both hands in politics, and cared for his ailing wife. His knowledge of politics was vast, his opinions needle-sharp.

"Charlie was a very, very tenacious guy, but Charlie was the sort of person who would always, always defend the underdog," Pitaro says. "He believed there were people in society that needed someone to stand up for them, and that's what he was. ... He believed this with every fiber of his body."

Foley says, "He was a damn good Democrat, I'll tell you that. Charlie was a really decent, fine fellow."

And Charlie was in his glory this year with two breakthrough candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. He wisely was concerned that the wear and tear of a lengthy primary would sidetrack the party's greater mission of regaining the White House.

City, county, state, and country. The Legislature and the judiciary. From the Jean constable to the state Supreme Court, Charlie had an opinion on the caliber of character of just about every one.

The opinions of the crew could be biting. Foley recalls a time when one of his gentler remarks drew a strained silence. He later regretted his statement and called Charlie to apologize.

"He said, 'Do you really want to?'" Foley recalls. "And I said yes. He said, 'If you mean it, it's accepted.' And that was the end of it. He never brought it up again. If you can't holler once in a while, what's the use of having a friend?

"Charlie was a good, loyal friend."

And, said Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, "Charlie taught all of us an important lesson about politics and following your heart: Always do what you think is right and do it for all the right reasons."

For Democratic Party master mechanic Harriet Trudell, Waterman was fearless. She remembers when Waterman and Pitaro took their opinions from the coffee shop to the airwaves with a radio show devoted to liberal political thinking. They were sometimes short of listeners, but never short of opinions.

"The night Charlie and Tom invited me on their show, I never got a word in edgewise -- and that's saying something coming from me," Trudell says. "Charlie believed in social justice, and the way you got social justice was through the Democratic Party. He believed it was the only savior for people. He never, ever doubted that the Democratic Party was the answer."

Pitaro adds, "His whole philosophy was, we can do better. And he held people to task who didn't do better."

The Third Street Wrecking Crew has lost a charter member, and the Democrats have lost a fierce defender.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.