DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

On Feb. 9, 1982, Vice President George Bush tried to solve a little problem he had. People kept throwing back in his face his 1980 characterization of Ronald Reagan's economic program as "voodoo economics."

When he first used the term, Bush had been running against Reagan in the 1980 Republican primaries and caucuses. By 1982, though, Reagan and Bush were a team and the voodoo comment was a bit of an embarrassment. Preferring to be vice president than right, Bush tried to distance himself from the term by denying he ever used it.

On Feb. 9, he said, "One, I didn't say it. Nobody, every network's looked for it and none can find it, it was never said, and I challenge anybody to find it."

Now, this was pretty dumb. Dozens of reporters and thousands of people had heard Bush make the comment in various speeches. He was betting on the possibility that no one had a tape of the comment.

My pal and former boss, Ken Bode of NBC News, went on the air the next night with a report. In it, an excerpt from a speech Bush made on April 10, 1980, was broadcast. This was part of the report:

BUSH: So what I'm saying is that it's -- it just isn't going to work and it's very interesting that the man who invented this type of what I call a voodoo economic policy.

BODE: What was that again?

BUSH: -what I call a voodoo economic policy.

Now, this was not a complete long shot for Bush to try. The broadcasting industry is traditionally contemptuous of its obligations to history. When a documentary maker in 1963 tried to find film of John Kennedy's reputedly eloquent plea for religious tolerance during the 1960 West Virginia primary, it no longer existed. The first two Super Bowls and much of the Tonight shows are gone. A Reno television station loaned to a Salt Lake station a tape of the live newscast recorded when D.B. Cooper's plane landed in Reno, and when it was returned it had been erased. (Patrick Loughney of the Library of Congress: "Much of American television history, well over 50 percent, has either already been lost or is in danger of being lost in the next decade.")

But though Bush may have been playing the odds, he lost.

If the same incident happened today, it's unlikely that Bode would have had to dig up the tape. It would probably have already been posted on You Tube. That's a new custom that is going to help keep politicians honest.

But even with such things, there's still no substitute for a good reporter with a head full of institutional memory. Some things are never spoken by politicians, only written.

We had a perfect example of this last week when Gov. Jim Gibbons gave a speech in Minden in which he said he was willing to support a state lottery: "I have no problem with a lottery."

Among his listeners was Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Molly Ball. After the governor's speech, she asked him why he was no longer opposing a lottery. He replied, "I never have. When did you hear that?"

Ball, knowing Gibbons' record better than Gibbons, then trotted out in print the governor's 2007 written statement: "I respect recent efforts by some legislators to explore options for new revenue to the state. However, I do not believe it is a proper function of Nevada government to operate a lottery, nor do I think that the State should be in competition with its largest industry. Elsewhere, lotteries have proven to be costly and bureaucratic, something I do not believe our citizens want more of in Nevada. I will not, therefore, support any legislation that includes the establishment of a lottery in Nevada."

There's nothing like a well informed gover -- I mean, reporter.