As he approaches the state budget problems with a mix of Nixonian secrecy and Bushian inflexibility, Gibbons also saw fit this week to quote his hero, Ronald Reagan, in a brief, but revealing address to the Republican Men's Club. Quite emblematically, Gibbons slightly mangled the Reagan quote about America being a "shining city on a hill" and a "beacon of hope."

As if to make his position even more dramatic, Reagan Lite (very lite) concluded his speech by referring to Nevada as a "brighter beacon on that hill ... the greatest state in the nation." As the small group at the Hofbrauhaus rose to cheer, I lamented that I had not sampled some of the establishment's finest brews to dull the pain of listening to a speech the Gipper at his worst could not have delivered.

How was our governor making Nevada shine so brightly, a beacon for all to follow? By sticking to his guns, even if they are rhetorical peashooters that pop out hackneyed phrase after hackneyed phrase. And worst of all, as the state reaches another of its proverbial crossroads, Gibbons sticks blindly to a script that is not just replete with empty cliches but full of revisionist history.

Gibbons deserves a little slack for the content of Monday's speech considering the audience was a 100 or so of the partisan faithful. But slack is one thing; his approach was as if his audience was slack jawed.

Count the cliches as we go along:

Gibbons began by alerting the assemblage to the consequences "if we have government reach into your pockets" (Cliche No. 1). Gibbons then railed about stopping "runaway government spending" (Cliche No. 2), which he actually enabled during his first session as governor.

"We cannot tax ourselves into prosperity," Gibbons continued, hitting us with Cliche No. 3. And then: "We have to prioritize government spending" (Cliche No. 4).

Gibbons then paused from his clichefest for a bit of revisionist history, with the carefully worded phrase that the "legislative session" increased spending by $1 billion. The legislative session? You mean the one where the session passes a budget and the governor signs it.

Indeed, as more than one true conservative has pointed out — a true conservative being one who actually has an ideology and not a sound bite — if Billion-Dollar Jim truly thought spending was out of control, he could have vetoed the budget. And again and again and again until lawmakers cut what he wanted them to cut.

Of course, the governor has not once, while criticizing runaway government spending, showed anyone what he would cut or how he would put the brakes on the money train. No, he is all cliche, no action. But the crowd lapped it up, perhaps high on Hofbrauhaus brew or perhaps it actually liked the taste of the Gibbons Kool-Aid.

Then the governor repeated his famous pledge: "We can do this without raising taxes" (Cliche No. 5).

And for Cliche No. 6, he immediately turned to the easy target of California for these two sound bites:

"To the West of us, every tax known to the human mind is in place. Every spending known to the human mind is in place."

Known to the human mind? What other mind would he be talking about?

After telling us that he is doing just what families do in a money crunch — as if families cut across the board rather than thoughtfully and electively — he told us that "government can live within its means" (Cliche No. 7).

Then, Gibbons left cliches behind for a moment to venture into a world of bizarre logic. Gibbons insisted he would not tap the state's rainy day fund despite a financial downpour because we "don't need to be dipping into it five months after the legislative session."

Does this make any sense? The fund exists to be tapped during financial crisis, so if he is asking for 8 percent budget cuts, that's a crisis. And if five months is too soon to siphon from the rainy day fund, then isn't two or three months of fiscal year data too little to make 8 percent cuts?

Gibbons, apparently having exhausted his cliches, began to repeat them. He talked about having agencies "prioritize spending" (Cliche No. 8) and "make sure they live within their means" (Cliche No. 9).

Gibbons then simply declared, "There is a $285 million shortfall in this state." This isn't a cliche or revisionist history. It's simply false. That is the number his budget director has forecast could be the shortfall after nearly two more years.

The governor then finished with a flourish, telling the crowd he "will stand strong and if I do the Republican Party will stand strong." He then launched into his Reaganesque closing, making it 10 cliches (an average of one a minute or so) and zero solutions in one short speech.

Now that's a shining example of leadership and a beacon for others to follow.