Los Angeles Times
Steve Lopez:
Points West
It’s Open Season on Donkeys, Elephants
June 7, 2006
Whatever the results of Tuesday’s hold-your-nose primary for governor,
this much is true:
Democrats Steve Westly and Phil Angelides were both gutted and fileted
by this newspaper over the past several weeks. I mean that in a good
way.
Readers learned, primarily from reporters Dan Morain and Evan Halper,
that Westly and Angelides were anything but the upstanding,
straight-talking crusaders they claimed to be. It was this newspaper,
let’s remember, that pointed out the absurdity of an Angelides TV ad
blasting Westly for donations from “a corrupt Chicago businessman.” As
Morain and Halper discovered, Angelides himself had tried to tap the
same guy.
I almost hesitate to mention any of this, because there’s nothing
surprising or unusual about the way Westly and Angelides were knocked
around by The Times. That’s a newspaper’s job: Hold candidates up to
public inspection, study the viability of their promises and slap them
around as needed.
I’m just wondering why the paper hasn’t gotten huzzahs from the
professional gas bags who worked themselves into a frenzy three years
ago over our equally tough reporting on a candidate named Arnold
Schwarzenegger. As that doddering shill Hugh Hewitt put it back then,
The Times was “an organ of the Democratic Party” with no interest
other than “agenda journalism.”
Have John and Ken of radio fame weighed in on The Times’ coverage? If
you don’t know them, they’re the carnival barkers who jumped all over
the newspaper for its apparent bias and then showed up at
Schwarzenegger rallies to sing his praises, yapping like lap dogs.
“Wondering if anyone can tell me how much time the show has devoted to
The Times’ coverage of Westly and Angelides,” I wrote to them in an
e-mail that was not answered by my deadline.
Maybe they’ve talked of nothing else on-air. To be honest, I wouldn’t
know. I’d rather stick my head in a kettle drum and beat it with a
soup spoon than listen to these guys. But I sure hope they’ve given us
our props for reporting on the Westly-Angelides factor sleaze
especially given their cheerleading for Schwarzenegger.
I called Ken Khachigian, my favorite GOP consultant, even though he
worked with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, to ask if he’d heard any
Republicans complimenting The Times’ tough coverage of Westly and
Angelides.
Khachigian gave The Times a pat on the back but said there’s a reason
conservatives aren’t ready to hand out any medals just yet. “Their
expectations are that once the primary’s over, the target turns to
Arnold,” he said. “They think that once the choice is a liberal, or
left-winger, and a Republican, then the gun sights go to the
Republican side.”
You can’t win with these guys.
Khachigian is predicting the paper will now empty both barrels on
Chuck Poochigian, the GOP candidate for attorney general against Jerry
Brown.
Wait a minute. If there’s a standing liberal agenda, why has The Times
broken the kneecaps of Westly and Angelides before one of them busts
out of the gates against Schwarzenegger?
That’s not to say the paper won’t tee off on Schwarzenegger between
now and November. Both he and his opponent will be vetted anew, and
based on what we already know about them, there’ll be plenty of
material to work with. Readers sometimes confuse this kind of
relentless snooping as the work of a political agenda rather than an
attempt to hold candidates accountable and keep readers informed, and
I’d like to try and set the record straight.
As a breed, good reporters are a mutant species, often completely
lacking in social graces, fashion sense and normal interests. They
don’t have many friends other than themselves, and even those
relationships involve unhealthy levels of suspicion.
Show a good reporter a bright, sunny day and he’ll wonder if the ozone
is burned to hell. This is not a matter of training, but of molecular
chemistry. They’re like hunting dogs, in love with the chase and
deliriously happy to go sniffing after any old bird, regardless of
hue.
A couple of weeks ago, to give you an example, Cruz Bustamante was in
town. True-blue Democrat, right?
By that measure, a left-leaning Democratic apologist like yours truly
should have given him a pass. As a columnist, I’ve got a license,
after all, to be biased. But I never let that get in the way of a good
public flogging. Bustamante was rolling in insurance industry dough
while running for state insurance commissioner, and he was hanging his
campaign on a plea to drop 50 pounds as an example for healthy living.
What choice did I have but to conceal a bathroom scale in my backpack
and pull it out after lunch at a Mexican cantina?
If holding people accountable means occasionally making them
uncomfortable, then I’m an equal opportunity agitator.
Speaking of which, one of Schwarzenegger’s aides recently suggested it
might be time for me and the governor to break bread. Finally. I’ve
been waiting three years for him to accept my invitation to get to
know my sweet side.
It’ll be painless, Arnold. Just a light workout.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
