Gov. Jim Gibbons isn’t taking the charge of cowardice (levied by state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford on Monday) lying down. He’s issued a Strongly Worded Statement to rebut the allegation, charging Horsford with wanting to raise taxes. The horror, the horror.

Here’s the governor’s remarks:

I have always made it clear that I do not support tax increases. I have also always said that despite my personal opinion on the matter, I will respect and abide by the will of the voters. I was the first elected official to publicly recognize the significance of the votes on the room tax question in November and put that proposed increase in my budget submitted to the Legislature on January 15, 2009. I was the first elected official to realize that the will of the voters can and should be part of the solution to the severe budget deficit facing the state. I included that tax increase in my proposed budget reluctantly as I don’t believe raising taxes is the way to get Nevada out of an economic recession.

Let’s take a break here for a second, to provide an inconvenient fact left out by Gibbons. Yes, he has always said he’s against taxes. Yes, he has always said the one exception is if the voters of the state decide to endorse a tax increase.

But Gibbons also signed a pledge that said he would “oppose and veto” any and all tax increases, a pledge that has no exception for the will of the voters. So even if he’s carrying out the will of the voters by supporting a tax increase, he’s breaking the pledge, which he signed without amendment of his own free will.

Not only that, but Gibbons didn’t just reluctantly support the tax by putting its revenue in his budget. In fact, he said repeatedly he would sign it into law, consistent with his self-created “will of the voters” exception. But is he going to do that? No, he’s not. So not only did he lie to the anti-taxers (pledging to oppose and veto all tax increases, and then failing to do so) but he’s also lied to everybody else (pledging to sign the tax increase, which he announced Monday he would not do). But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Continue, governor:

Many legislators, Senator Horsford and Senator [Bill] Raggio included, have publicly stated that they also reluctantly supported I.P. 1 (the Room Tax Bill). They chose to express their reluctance in public statements, and I have chosen to express my reluctance as many previous Governors have on other matters, and as I did on other bills last session, by allowing I.P.1 to become law without my signature. If Senator Horsford considers the Governor of this State a “coward” for refusing to be an ardent supporter of a tax increase, then I think our new Senate Majority Leader has made it perfectly clear to Nevadans that he not only plans to raise taxes, but intends to do so with great zeal and enthusiasm.

If only, governor.

The real tragedy here is that, in our humble view, Gibbons failed to sign the tax increase because he still entertains the notion that he’s got a political future in Nevada. He doesn’t. We have never seen a public official screw up as much as Jim Gibbons has in the last two years. If there are errors he has not made, self-imposed wounds he has not inflicted, scenarios he has not worst-cased, we don’t know what they are. It would have required not just political courage to sign the tax — since he already broke the anti-tax pledge, why the hell wouldn’t he do it? — but it would have required something even more basic, self-awareness. Gibbons doesn’t possess that quality, it seems, any more than he possesses any virtue.