Gibbons Just Wants To Stay In The Garage All Night

See, I can relate everything to a Clash song if I tried hard enough. Believe it or not, I’ve been sitting back on the alleged Gibbons parking garage assault, but I’ve been fascinated by the press coverage, particularly the lack of press coverage in Northern Nevada, where many of Gibbons’ constituents live. Today, the RGJ featured the first original reporting on the affair, a piece by Ray Hagar, which plays the game of letting “the experts” and Gibbons himself speculate on the effect the alleged assault will have on his campaign. Hagar did point out that Gibbons has contradicted himself over whether or not Mazzeo was intoxicated when he attempted to walk her to her truck. The day after the incident, he remarked that she “didn’t walk in a straight line.” In today’s story, he said that he has not been “trained to look at somebody and make that determination of if they are or they are not inebriated,” legal double-speak if I’ve ever heard it. This exposes a shift in his campaign’s damage control strategy, which began as something akin to “she was too drunk to know what she was talking about” and turned into “I’m not trained to recognize whether someone is drunk” to address concerns over the fact that, according to his police statement, he attempted to walk a visibly intoxicated woman to her car so she could drive herself home. Coupled with the false information Gibbons provided in his statement, an effort to coverup something is evident. The only thing we don’t know is exactly what Gibbons and his campaign are trying to cover up. Is it that there was a parking garage assault? Is it that Gibbons was intoxicated and made the poor choice to walk an intoxicated women to her truck so she could drive herself home?

Gibbons’ statement at the end of both the written and video interview is glaringly incomplete. Gibbons says: “I agree that if I would have known she was … I would have done something differently,” Gibbons said. “It’s a challenge. How do you go back and change that?” Notice that he does not or cannot finish the statement which surely was going to end with the word “drunk,” “inebriated,” or “intoxicated.” Take your pick. Its an important moment–an ominous omission, because it would have revealed a repetition of his original statement–probably the most truthful one.

But now Mazzeo is going to hold a press conference tomorrow. You certainly can’t blame her for wanting to defend herself and her statement. Her voice has been missing with the exception of the 911 calls. What’s truly ironic about her sudden need to go public is that it was probably Gibbon’s press conference last week, in which he and his lawyer, Don Campbell, accused Mazzeo of dubious intent that forced her hand so to speak. As Hugh Jackson wrote recently on NevadaToday:

And so the message of the day: Chrissie Mazzeo is up to something, Gibbons and his team secretly have a pretty good idea what it is, but they can’t say, and they want everyone to know that it’s certainly nothing that, well, an officer and a gentleman would do.

Remember that at this point, the only person we are certain lied about the incident is Jim Gibbons.

I also find myself wondering about the circumstances under which Mazzeo’s identity was revealed. As you may know, there is considerable debate in the media regarding the issue of when and how to print the names of (alleged and otherwise) assault victims. I have been unable to find that information in the press coverage so if anyone knows, please enlighten me. Did the Las Vegas Review Journal choose to reveal it or did Mazzeo and her lawyers? If the newspaper revealed it, was it with Mazzeo’s permission? If Mazzeo chose to reveal herself, why? No doubt it was because she was facing impending exposure? Regardless, the fact that she was silent this long leads me to believe that she was sincere when she opted not to pursue the assault charge. If her intentions were truly dubious, wouldn’t she have held a press conference immediately after the alleged assault? Her decision not to pursue the charge does not indicate a wish to drag Gibbons’ good name through the mud, rather, it reflects a wish to stay out of the public eye for whatever reason.

I’m glad Mazzeo is now going to speak to the media, although I’m sure she isn’t. Neither is Gibbons. I don’t know that her press conference will clear anything up for us, but at least she will now have a chance to speak her mind and respond to the coverage of this event so far. And the public will finally have the missing piece of the puzzle.

I would like to point out coverage by The Gleaner and the Nevada Now who have recognized the ongoing problem with sexual assault media coverage in this country. Focusing on Mazzeo’s intoxication in the first stories is a common way of setting up the circumstances in which its easier to blame the potential victim. Please remember, that intoxication is not an excuse for sexual assault. And the fact that two prominent political journalists stepped forward to make sure we all knew how drunk Mazzeo was and to defend Gibbons before all the facts were in is also, sadly, not unusual in this country. Neither is the fact that a victim would not want to charge her attacker.

And this just in….Jim Gibbons is Keith Olbermanns’ worst person in the world tonight.

Similar Posts:

• Young Should Remove Himself From The Gibbons Mazzeo Investigation
• Myrna Is Critical Of Hagar (And Others)
• Its A Good Thing Jane Ann Morrison Isn’t Hot!

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