WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

THURSDAY

ON THE ROAD WITH METRO

Five months after making some painful disclosures about the avoidable death of one of his officers, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie stepped in front of cameras Tuesday to do it all over again.

Let's hope it's the last time he does so for a long, long time. ...

What's it going to take to get Las Vegas officers to slow down and obey the law? Mr. Gillespie now says supervisors will discipline officers or write citations when they fail to wear seat belts. Good luck with that.

Certainly, Las Vegas police should spare the public from participation in heavy-handed, federally mandated "Click It or Ticket" campaigns. And Mr. Gillespie and other law enforcement officials have no business traveling to Carson City to demand that the Legislature make seat belt violations a primary offense. ...

The public's safety is at stake. The culture of the Las Vegas police force must change today, before anyone else dies.

WEDNESDAY

'EVERYTHING'S GOING WELL IN NEVADA'

"Everything is going well in Nevada," Sen. Harry Reid insisted last week, reporting that real estate agents in Las Vegas tell him they see signs of economic recovery, and that Las Vegas hotels remain full on weekends. "We're doing fine," he emphasized.

A sunny disposition isn't all bad. Las Vegans certainly are doing their best. But Sen. Reid apparently hasn't had the experience of driving to his favorite Las Vegas pizza joint or insurance or travel agency, only to find the storefront suddenly empty.

The national unemployment rate is 9.8 percent -- bad enough. But in Las Vegas, more than 135,000 people are out of work. Unemployed people don't eat out, or buy much in the way of new clothes or cars. And so the spiral continues.

Back in February, when Sen. Reid was helping to enact the huge, special-interest "stimulus" pork bill, Nevada's unemployment stood at 10 percent. At that time, he promised the Democrats' massive spending bill "would create three and a half million jobs across the country, including 34,000 in Nevada."

Are they hiding all those new jobs up at Area 51?