Nev gov Gibbons sends 100s txt msgs 2 other womans cell, not wifes
You know that unidentified estranged wife of a Reno doctor that the governor of Nevada is not having an affair with?
Well, during one month last year he exchanged 850 text messages with her phone from his official state phone, at 15 cents per.
It's all part of an increasingly messy divorce after 22 year
s between the 63-year-old Gov. Jim Gibbons, a former military and commercial pilot, and his wife, Dawn, 54, who formerly ran two Las Vegas wedding chapels. She's also served in the state legislature. Hey, it's Nevada remember.
The Times' Ashley Powers has all the background in her story here this morning.
Anyway, Dawn's original divorce papers included references to her husband's infatuation and infidelities with a marital intruder who was the estranged wife of a Reno doctor. (Are there any other kinds?)
Today, the Reno Gazette-Journal published Nevada....
...records showing that Gibbons used his state cellphone to send more than 850 text messages in one month to a cellphone owned by Kathy Karrasch, who happens to be the estranged wife of a Reno doctor.
Probably a coincidence. The governor says he and Karrasch are just longtime friends. Must be. On one day, the newspaper reported, the two cellphones exchanged 160 text messages between 8:30 in the morning and 11:45 p.m. That's very friendly.
On another day, or night, they exchanged 91 messages between midnight and 2 a.m., which is something like one text message every 79 seconds. Talk about teenagers. Bet the governor's fingers were really sore.
And their arms too from holding the phones to their ears during 42 lengthy conversations, mostly at night and on weekends. The calls to Karrasch's phone abruptly ended 14 days into April last year, the Gazette-Journal reported.
The newspaper said the messages' contents were not available, which may be just as well. Although it would be kinda neat to...No, they're private communbications and we have no business even imagining the abbrvtions used.
The paper noted the governor had reimbursed the state for the calls' costs.
The governor does not face pretty tolerant Nevada voters again until 2010. In the meantime Jim and Dawn have agreed to stop fighting over custody of the governor's mansion and negotiate. (With a hat tip to the indefatiguable Jon Ralston.)
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo Credits: AP / Cathleen Allison; Nevada Office of the First Lady
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Lol if this woman thinks she going to get any of the state-owned house she will be sadly mistaken.
Posted by: Ryan | June 10, 2008 at 05:17 PM
Kind of makes me proud to be from Nevada and a Democrat! Gibbons is so stupid it makes me want to laugh all the way to November, 2010!!
Posted by: scooter | June 10, 2008 at 05:26 PM
Gibbons knows how to text message?
Posted by: Alkali Bill | June 10, 2008 at 07:34 PM
does he know the mayor of detroit, kwame kilpatrick?
Posted by: carol | June 10, 2008 at 07:42 PM
Hard to stop laughing. This hilarious subject matter presented by a writer with a gift for snarky commentary. Glad Atrios sent me here. Hahahahah!
Thanks, Andrew...
(Well, you're welcome. We hope you come back. And that's not said snarkily!)
Posted by: try.different | June 10, 2008 at 09:21 PM
Hi,
Dawn Gibbons run a wedding chapel in Reno, not Las Vegas. Not everything goes on in LV in this state, sadly the Gibbons saga, including the "doctor's wife" (she is identified in todays RGJ) is going on in Reno.
And this is a far more conservative place, socially, than LV.
Speaking of which, why isn't the media covering anther ongoing Republican saga, that of the Republican convention that was canceled mid stream? The gossip here in Reno (where it was to be held) is that is was disbanded when it became evident that supporters of Ron Paul might take over the platform.
Posted by: Lee | June 11, 2008 at 11:37 AM