The Choate-Weinberg Report

All Aboard The Trash Train?

The Wall Street Journal took note of the desire of the San Francisco-based garbage company cleverly named Recology to dump 65-Million TONS of garbage near Winnemucca the other day and an interesting thrust of the story is that if a majority of citizens of Humboldt County were to be successful it might screw up the hopes of Lincoln and Mineral Counties to get in on the gravy, uh, trash train.

Of all the reasons which could be manufactured to let these clowns turn Humboldt County into one of the nation’s largest trash dumps, that is the most bogus I have ever heard.

I suspect that most of the listeners to our Winnemucca radio station, KWNA, who are opposed to the dump (which, empirically, are most of them) would be happy to see Mineral County and Lincoln County take all the garbage they can take.

This isn’t about those two counties or about Yucca Mountain or even about the fact that the garbage is coming from those wonderful stewards of our Earth in Pelosi-town.

This is purely about the fact that Winnemucca is a growing and vibrant community which values not smelling like Secaucus, New Jersey and doesn’t like being railroaded by a company which has in its not too distant past a Vice President who served 18 months in Club Fed for bribing the San Bernardino County Manager.

Residents of Clark County who have been there long enough to remember when the Isola brothers owned the garbage company ought to understand.

Frankly, the part of the story which the Journal missed is the single most important part.

This project will ultimately be derailed by the citizens of Humboldt County using the referendum process which will allow them to force a repeal of the ordinance which enables such a project to an election.  Or maybe Recology will mount a persuasive case and convince a majority of the voters not to repeal the ordinance.

What is for damn sure is that it will not be decided without citizen input behind closed doors like the 15 year contract extension for the garbage company in Clark County was.

Or like it started to be decided in 2007.

And County Commissioners, Planning Commissioners and City Councilmen who think that citizen input is not all that important should pay attention to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s current standing and chances of re-election.

On a related subject.

Harry Reid’s latest re-election TV commercial starring MGM/Mirage CEO Jim Murren strains the bounds of propriety.

For one thing, MGM/Mirage is a publicly held company and, somehow we suspect that not all of its shareholders appreciate what amounts to a corporate endorsement for a guy who really isn’t all that compatible with many of his constituents.

For another, the construction of City Center is an exercise in hubris which has already cost the company billions in write-downs and threatens to cannibalize its other properties.  So, if Harry’s help in threatening the nation’s bankers to fund the final construction really did make a difference, what he may have done was use the heavy hand of government to cost those workers at other properties which lose business to City Center their jobs.

And finally, half of the ownership in City Center are those devout Muslims from the nation-state of Dubai.  Which, we suppose, indicates that some of the most dubious “friends” this nation has want to see Harry re-elected.

All we can infer from the commercial is that Harry must really be desperate.

Here’s an idea for him.

Why not represent your actual constituents as opposed to Nancy Pelosi’s?

That might obviate the need for inappropriate commercials starring CEOs of companies which might or might not be here in a few years.

FRED WEINBERG

Las Vegas A Failed State Just Like Somalia

Sometime back, I was watching a show on Fox News Channel and one of the commentators—I really don’t remember who—called Somalia a “failed state”.

As I was turning that phrase over in my mind, it came to me that I live within 60 miles of a similarly failed “state”—Clark County, Nevada.

For those of you who don’t live here and pronounce the state Nevaahda, Clark County is more popularly known as “Las Vegas” since the County is much larger than the city and the County’s government is bigger than some state governments.

Now, in Somalia, the cause of failed statehood lies in the warlords who can’t get along.

The cause of Clark County’s failed statehood is a bit more complex, but in many respects it comes because our warlords get along a little too well.

Four of them went to prison in the 2003, but their thefts were petty compared to what their lack of intelligence brought about.

When Dwight Eisenhower left the Presidency in 1960, he gave a famous speech warning us about the dangers inherent in the “military-industrial complex”.

In Las Vegas, it’s a “gaming-development-government” complex.

When the mob gave way to publicly held behemoths and their private equity buy-outs, depending on what’s in fashion on Wall Street at any given time, a tremendous amount of power went to the senior executives of those companies.  They have the ears—both literally and figuratively—of the most powerful government body in the state, the Clark County Commission.  They make the campaign contributions which get them elected and they can make those commissioners who play ball very comfortable.

Ditto for the developers.

So, we have a government which sees as its only job keeping the development cycle going.

It was manifest most clearly several years ago when the Clark County Water Queen, Pat Mulroy said about the ludicrous plan to build a multi-Billion dollar pipeline from Northern Nevada and steal the rural water that if that plan didn’t happen, growth would stop in 2013.

And?

Everybody agreed with her that would be a terrible thing.

Have to build new casinos, new houses, new everything.  Economics?  Who cares?

Well, now we have an economic recession.  People no longer wish to spend $300 a night for the privilege of betting money against the house odds.  Our visitors are about eight per cent fewer in number but they are also bringing less money with which to wager.

That manifests itself in August taxable sales in Clark County plunging from $3-billion to $2.2-billion.

But there’s a bigger cost.

A record amount of violent crime.  Murder-suicides of people who can no longer afford the cheesebox houses they bought for $400,000 which, anywhere else, would have sold for $120,000. Kids shooting kids.  A police department out of control because it is run by a Sheriff who is way over his head.

In short, Clark County has become a version of Washington D.C. without the elderly monuments to hubris.  Our monuments are much newer and, in many cases, half built.

It is not a pleasant place to live.

And, until whoever is left takes some control of what passes for government and puts a stake in the heart of the growth at any cost mentality, it will never be a pleasant place to live.

Maybe it’s not Somalia but it’s not hard to make the comparison.

FRED WEINBERG

It's The White House—Not Animal House

I read in a letter to the editor somewhere that Barack Obama is no Richard Nixon.

The current occupants of the White House and their sycophants are more than a little upset about being compared to Nixon as they compile an enemies list, starting with Fox News, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the health insurance companies.

Well, here’s a little history for them.

They’re right.

Barack Obama is NOT anywhere close to Richard Nixon.

You see, before Nixon allowed hubris to bring down his presidency, he actually went to China and negotiated a détente with the very Mao Tse-Tung (who, for some reason we now call Mao Zedong) who the incredibly naïve White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says is her favorite political philosopher.

That’s of course, the same Anita Dunn who has decided that Fox News Channel isn’t really a “news” channel and thus is eligible to be shut out at the White House because , well, she’s a follower of Mao.

The Mao who said that “political power comes from the barrel of a gun”.

Nixon allowed hubris to end his Presidency.

But even when he was near death, President William Jefferson Clinton went to him for foreign affairs advice.

Barack Obama was a “community organizer” in Chicago, then an Illinois State Senator, then he served less than two years as a United States Senator prior to announcing that he was going to do us all a favor and become our next President so he could put all that vast experience to work.

Nixon was a Congressman and a Senator and the Vice President as well as an out of office private lawyer prior to winning a hard fought battle for the White House.

He argued with Nikita Khrushchev as Vice President about the future of the free world.

He saw China as a coming power years before anyone else.

Again, nothing here excuses his actions in the Watergate scandal, but Richard Nixon was perhaps one of the best prepared candidates to take over the presidency and he allowed hubris to end what otherwise may have been a tour de force.

The children in the West Wing—before they fall victim to the same sort of hubris—should read some history.

Enemies lists, attempts to attack the media and arrogance don’t work for very knowledgeable and well-prepared administrations, much less the current group of clowns.

Put as bluntly as I can, Barack Obama inhabits the White House, not Animal House.

There is plenty of history to indicate what happens when you go stupid at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and to some extent George H.W. (“read my lips”) Bush can tell you what happens when you get so far out of touch with the American public than you are no longer effective.

Instead of understanding his limited experience—and that of those he has surrounded himself with—and acting with some degree of deference to that lack of experience, Obama seems to think that he can act like a bull in a china shop and the American public with find that acceptable.

They didn’t for Nixon and Carter, no matter how smart they were.

I don’t believe that Obama lacks the intelligence to be a good President.  Or even the will.

But Chris Wallace of Fox News put it best.  He said that “these guys are the biggest whiners and crybabies” he has seen in that office.

He’s seen a lot because his father is CBS newsman Mike Wallace who covered three decades of them.

Obama needs to—in today’s vernacular—man up, act like an adult and tell his underlings to stop acting like three-year-olds who have been told they cannot have a happy meal.

FRED WEINBERG

It’s All About Jobs, Smarty

High officials in the Obama Administration have created a real tempest among Democratic politicians in Virginia with an announcement that if the Democratic candidate for Governor loses in next month’s general election it will be because he did not follow the White House’s advice.

This seems a very strange way for the President to help a Democrat candidate.

Apparently, the White House staff thinks that Barack Obama won the 2008 Presidential election because of their brilliant campaign skills.  They seem to be forgetting that for the two months prior to the election the nation’s largest banks had to be bailed out, credit markets froze, two of the big three automakers failed, several of the largest investment houses, including Lehman collapsed and John McCain ran what has to be one of the worst presidential campaigns in living memory.

In addition, there was the Bush factor.  Millions of voters decided in the 2006 election that George W. Bush and the GOP led Congress were totally out of control and totally without ideas.  Almost literally all Barack Obama had to do was point out that he was not George Bush and constantly say “Change, change, change.”  The Nobel committee gave our President its 2009 Peace Prize for winning the election and keeping Bush disciple John McCain out of the office.  What other reason could there be?

Although Obama won 365 electoral votes to John McCain’s 173, the 2008 election was far closer than those numbers suggest.  Obama won Ohio by only 200,000 votes, Indiana by 26,000, North Carolina by 14,000 and Florida by 204,000.

In 2012, George W. Bush will not be running.  Unemployment will be above 10 percent.  As Obama supporters are learning, President Obama is not keeping many of Candidate Obama’s promises.  The Obama economic policies will result in the loss of another 2 million manufacturing jobs.  Moreover, the national debt will be 50 percent larger by 2004.

Rhetoric is fine and slick campaign techniques can go a long way, but they cannot offset the reality of 30 million unemployed workers and millions of people evicted from their homes.

The arrogance of the White House insiders is becoming a barrier not only to the Administration’s programs, but also to the Democratic Party.

If Barack Obama wishes to be the President that many thought he could and would be, he needs to change his advisors.  He needs people who understand that this next election will not be about Afghanistan, health care, the environment, patents or any of the other issues that so consume his time.  The issue will be jobs.  

People who cannot house, cloth and fed their children and themselves will vote overwhelmingly for that candidate who can credibly offer a way to create jobs – not welfare or make work, but real jobs that have a long-term future.  

If Barack Obama wants a second term, he must devote himself to creating more and better jobs for the American people.

Voters will judge Barack Obama by what he has done on jobs.  The Bush policies may or may not have created this job crisis, but Obama as President now owns it.  The test will be whether the unemployment rate is at a 6 or 7 percent level and heading down.  If it is at 10 percent or higher, Barack Obama will be joining Bill Clinton on the lecture circuit.  

To paraphrase the 1992 inside slogan of the Clinton campaign, for 2012, “It’s all about jobs, smarty.”

                                                                                                        PAT PAT CHOATE

In The Shark Pool

Goldman Sachs has reportedly put aside $28 billion for executive bonuses at the end of 2009.  A couple of other major investment houses have similarly rich plans in the works.

The Obama Administration is outraged that these firms would pay out such amounts in the middle of economic crisis when the official unemployment rate is 10 percent and the unofficial (real) rate is approach 20 percent.  Rahm Emanuel, the President’s Chief of Staff, and David Axelrod, his political advisor, are all over the Sunday talk shows talking about the ingratitude of banks that would have failed with taxpayer help now rushing to pay out massive fortunes in the form of year-end bonuses.

Yet, this is nothing less than chickens (buzzards) coming home to roost. 

There are no moral principles on Wall Street. 

Smash and grab is the ethic.  For two men who are supposedly astute about the world works and advise the President, such innocence and naiveté is scary.

The moment to bring reform to Wall Street was in January 2009, at the very start of the Administration, when the banks were teetering and their leadership would have assigned away their first born for more capital.  Then, they would have agreed to just about anything to keep their jobs, stocks and a chance to make more.  They saw what happened to executives at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Nevertheless, that time has passed.  Now, the only way to secure Congressional support is to wage a Jihad against the bankers that will so outrage the public and terrify these financial thieves that they will agree to a new Glass-Steagall Act that separates commercial and investment banking, monitors all transactions and regulates the derivates market.  In addition, yes, the federal government needs to bring all the banks under a real Consumer Protection Act.  Banks are gouging depositors in ways that should be made illegal, such as hair trigger raises in credit card interest rates and manipulative overcharges that will produce almost $30 billion in revenues for the banks in 2009.

If the President is angry over all this, he has another tool at his disposal – he can banish people from the financial industry for years, even a lifetime.   Certainly, many of the gamblers who got the nation into the financial crisis through their gambling with depositor’s monies should be banned from ever again managing other people’s monies.

He could also withdraw the nomination of Ben Bernanke to be Chair of the Federal Reserve System, until that organization releases data about the $2 trillion of loans it has put on the Fed’s books as part of the bailout.  I suspect that a great deal of that money went to bailout foreign banks, such as Switzerland’s USB, and that more went in the form of very cheap loans to banks that turned around and loaned it to the Treasury at 3 percent plus interest rates.  A banker that borrows from the FED at about a quarter of a percent interest rate and loans it back to the Treasury at 3 percent hardly merits a bonus.

Moreover, whoever made such a sweetheart deal at the Fed, hardly merits a job as its Chairman.

The inexperience of this President’s advisors, from declaring war on a news network (Fox) to publicly attacking Wall Street bankers for being the sharks that they are is worrisome.  One does not criticize sharks, one eliminates them.  The prospect of the Administration making similar inexperienced decisions in private, but that remain secret, is deeply troubling.

Wall Street and Washington are tough places that require tough people to surmount.  Increasingly, this President and his advisors appear unequal to that challenge, and it should worry everyone.

PAT CHOATE

Children In The West Wing Have Forgotten Watergate

Would someone please explain to me how it is that the White House could possibly have a Communications Director who is perfectly willing to call a respected news outlet “the research arm of the Republican Party?” And then signal a war with that media outlet by cutting Fox News Channel off of administration officials as guests on it programs?

That’s what Anita Dunn did last week and it brings into question even more sharply the level of maturity of the children who now occupy the West Wing.

Let’s stipulate a couple of things up front.

Fox News Channel is not a corporate admirer of this occupant of the White House in, say, the manner that General Electric’s NBC networks are.  And the reason which I mention NBC’s ownership in that last sentence is that General Electric was vociferous in its corporate support for the President and has been rewarded with billions in financial support of its struggling financial subsidiary early in the Obama administration.

In fairness, GE – however poorly it may be being managed – may have qualified for that support given its size and importance to the American economy irrespective of its networks’ news antics.

Despite Fox’s lack of, shall we say, corporate love for Barack Obama, its NEWS coverage has been fair, unbiased and relentless.  It is a news outlet respected by its peers at NBC, CBS and ABC and its ratings show that people are watching.  More people, in fact, than watch CNBC, MSNBC, CNN and HNN out together.

There are times when Fox’s prime time OPINION and COMMENTARY programs have more viewers than the over the air networks.

Last week, Dan Rather—hardly an icon of conservative commentary—addressed a Planned Parenthood event in Minneapolis and was asked who would win the war between the White House and Fox News.  His two word reply was, “Fox News.”

Simply put, Bill O’Reilly has more viewers than the President.

Now, I can understand the mentality which leads to the kind of silly statements made by Ms. Dunn about one of the news organizations which covers the White House.
Here they were, getting sycophantic coverage from the three big broadcast networks and then Congress broke for the August recess.

And, all of a sudden, health care reform very much became the kind of issue in the news which slowed down the march of the lemmings due to the coverage of tea parties, town hall meetings and Astroturf.

The White House, no matter what it said or did could not tamp down the dissent of those town hall meetings.

And they attributed it largely to Fox News.  Maybe it actually was the case, since Fox used a lot of resources to cover those assemblies and it does have a lot of clout.

If any of the children in the White House were old enough, they might have thought about what it must have been like in the Nixon White House during Watergate.

I’d bet that was a very similar experience.

Nixon wanted to talk about going to Russia and China and all the pesky folks like, say, Dan Rather at CBS wanted to talk about was Watergate.

How inconvenient.

Why, the White House sent Vice President Spiro T. Agnew out to Des Moines to talk about the “nattering nabobs of negativism”.

Didn’t work.

Nixon still ended up resigning in disgrace, Agnew before him and CBS—however it may have been weakened by bad business decisions—is still around.  As is Rather, although he no longer works at CBS.

Dunn’s throw-down against Fox News Channel has all of the desperation of the Nixon Administration’s attempt to intimidate the media, (going after the Washington Post’s TV station licenses as an example) but none of the class of the late Bill Safire’s speeches which were written for Agnew.

And it will work just as well.

FRED WEINBERG

A Bad Civics Lesson In Winnemucca

I have been in the journalism business since I was 13 years old.

I have worked in this industry at every level from the smallest of weekly newspapers to network television covering everything from the smallest of city councils to major, national stories for the past 44 years.

At some point, you begin to realize that you’ve seen most everything at least once.

That certainly is the case for me—especially in the field of municipal and county government.

So, when I covered the Humboldt County (NV) Regional Planning Commission meeting last Thursday (video at www.stopcaliforniagarbage.com) and saw the antics of Vice Chairman Richard Brown, I was not surprised.  But I was quite dismayed.

This is a group which takes itself quite seriously.

Knowing that the item relating to the proposal of the San Francisco garbage company, Recology, to open a huge garbage dump in rural Humboldt County was going to be of huge interest to the community, the Commission staff still put it near the end of the agenda, apparently hoping that the roomful of people opposed to the project would get tired and leave.  It’s a standard bureaucratic trick.

Instead, those folks in attendance got a civics lesson.

They learned how concerned their Regional Planning Commission was with fifth-wheels placed on rural land zoned for mobile homes.  They learned how concerned their Regional Planning Commission was about a guy who wants to crush vehicles on his land.

They learned how concerned their Regional Planning Commission was about trash on city-owned land which was part of the city’s gold course.

Why their Regional Planning Commission’s Vice Chair was so concerned about the fifth-wheel, he abstained from official discussion so he could appear as a witness against one of his neighbors.

And then, when the issue of the garbage dump finally came up, were they still concerned?

Not so much.
Asked by a member of the public why they issued a conditional use permit to Recology, Chairman Ray Olsen said, “because property owners have rights.”

Apparently not if they want to park a fifth wheel or a single wide on the wrong rural lot. There, they represent the nanny state.

But if they want to build one of the biggest garbage dumps in history, then, they have rights.

Brown acted like a five-year-old, throwing a temper tantrum every time something went against the interests of his friends at Recology.  It was embarrassing.

He actually tried to shout down attorney Bob Dolan (www.stopcaliforniagarbage.com) and made a hollow threat to have him removed from the room while Chairman Olsen looked on.

Frankly, were this in Clark County, the FBI would already be looking into Brown’s relationship to Recology.   And the FBI has more than a passing familiarity with Recology, a company which has been involved in bribery investigations in the past and has had a Vice President do 18 months at Club Fed for that very crime.

I want to make it very clear that I am not yet accusing Brown of anything more than being incredibly and vehemently incompetent and obnoxious.

But if he keeps it up, we—and about 2,000 other citizens of Humboldt County—are going to want to verify his financial disclosure statements.

The equation here is simple.

A large—a VERY large—group of citizens are against this project.

Brown and his friends—for whatever their reasons—do not want to budge from a bad decision.

This is America.  The Planning Commission is going to lose. And if they keep it up, a whole lot of people are going to start asking some very inconvenient questions.

FRED WEINBERG

What's Next: ACORN Insurance Or Else?

I don’t know about you, but if the Federal Government tells me that I either have to buy health insurance or pay a fine or go to jail, I’ll have a hard time not forming up a militia.

The President’s position—assuming a Supreme Court suffering from dementia were to uphold it—is that, well, the states make you buy liability insurance for your car.  And that, no, it’s not a tax.

Two answers.

Bullcrap and Bullcrap.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not driving is not a right.  It is a privilege and, wrong headed or not, we have made the decision that you cannot drive on the publicly owned highways unless you insure yourself against any liabilities you might incur.

Again, wise public policy or not, that is a reasonable exercise of governmental authority.

But ordering every man, woman and child in the United States of America to buy health insurance or else could make a whole lot of us into the next Tim McVeigh.

Nobody has asked the logical question out loud, which is what would the Supreme Court say?

I’m guessing that ordering people to buy health insurance from private insurers as a way of avoiding a single payer government run system is probably coming dangerously close to the line of being the financial equivalent of eminent domain and would not get past a court test.

The hard left has essentially acknowledged that they can’t ram a single payer system down our throats.

Ordering us all to buy insurance is the next best thing.

Somehow, these geniuses think there is support in the nation for that.

They may pass it.  They may try and ram it through using the reconciliation process which only requires 51 votes in the Senate.

But it will never happen—even if the Supremes were to bless it.
I know that in polite company, we’re not supposed to say these things, but there are too many people who have read the Constitution who also have guns to allow such a thing to happen.

And if it were to happen what would be next?

We would all have to buy GM cars or go to jail?  Or we would all have to bank at the Bank of America or Citicorp or pay a fine?

The scary part of all of this is that the same people who are pushing this don’t want to renew the Patriot Act because it is too intrusive in our lives!

The hard left doesn’t want us listening into terrorist phone calls to preserve our freedom.

But they are perfectly OK with forcing us to buy health insurance.

The only thing more strange would be if we woke up to discover that there was a new insurance agency named ACORN Insurance Services.

Don’t laugh.

What do you think ACORN Housing was doing until a couple of kids playing Morly Safer undid them?

I hate to sound like Glen Beck, but in a case like this, you have to follow the money.

If this ludicrous plan were to actually happen, someone would make plenty of money.  See who that might be.

One final thought,

The Senate Finance Committee is refusing to put the proposed law up on the internet prior to their vote.  Why?  They simply don’t want to have to deal with mere voters reading it and picking it apart.

Screw them.

FRED WEINBERG

Chicago-Style Political Deal Making with China

In early September President Obama approved a recommendation by the International Trade Commission, a quasi-judicial body for trade matters, that the U.S. impose tariffs on the import of tires from China.  Under U.S.-China trade pacts, we can do that if U.S. jobs are threatened and their employers need time to adjust to a surge of Chinese imports.

Though the facts and law were on the side of the American workers, the Chinese and their U.S. lackeys went berserk, but then backed off.  For a couple of weeks, I heard rumors from friends in Washington that a backroom deal had been reached between the Obama Administration and the Chinese government – to appease the Chinese President Obama would not meet with the Dalai Lama when he came to Washington in October.

As you may remember, China invaded its neighbor, Tibet, in 1959 and has ruled it harshly ever since, using its land to re-settle Chinese citizens.  The Dalai Lama, a spiritual leader of that nation, escaped and ever after served as a symbol of the enslaved people of Tibet.  Since 1991, he has visited the President of the United States 10 times and in 2007, President George W. Bush conferred upon him in the White House the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award Congress confers.

On October 5, the White House announced that President Obama will not be meeting with the Dalai Lama when he comes to town in October.  Rather, he may meet with him after his scheduled visit with China’s leaders later in the year.

The President told the media that he wants real results from the Chinese not symbolism, such as a picture of him receiving this victim of Chinese aggression.

President Obama who as a young man was educated in Asia should remember that symbolism there is highly valued.  “Face,” as it is often termed, will be translated in this instance as the U.S. is willing to sacrifice Tibet and other geo-political interests in Asia in exchange for the Chinese lowering the threshold of their complaints about matters such as the tire decision.

Rather than gain respect from the Chinese for this symbolic move, he will lose it.  Indeed, he has already lost it.

There is a time and place for Chicago-style, “let’s make a backdoor deal,” politics but international relations with the Chinese is not that place, and now is certainly not the time. 

PAT CHOATE

An Alleged Assault On The Truth

I’m not big on complaining about the “liberal” media, since I have spent most of my adult life either working for the mainstream media or running my own show.

I take more of the Bernard Goldberg approach which is that a liberal tilt is inevitable when the “news” comes from New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles and that most people who produce the “news” can go months without ever meeting someone with whom they disagree politically.

That doesn’t make it right, but I genuinely believe that most people who, on a daily basis, decide what the “news” is don’t get up in the morning with the idea that they are going to consciously slant their daily coverage to the left.

But the end result is that it does happen.

If, as an example, a lefty icon such as, say, Roman Polanski, fleeing a sentencing in Los Angeles in 1978 finally gets caught, the Los Angeles Times calls the crime to which Polanski pled guilty “the alleged assault of a 13-year-old girl”.

That’s right.  L.A. Times writers Harriet Ryan and Richard Winter—both of who presumably are old enough to know better—called a crime which had already been pled guilty to by a perp who fled to France “alleged”.

Polanski, you see, is one of those figures who inspires respect from the left because he is part—albeit in exile—of the Hollywood-industrial complex.  O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake didn’t get that kind of coverage.

Now, the L.A. Times happens to be in Chapter 11.

It is part of the Chicago Tribune bankruptcy which was largely about a company which went private with a lot of debt and, in today’s economy, no longer has enough advertising revenue to service the debt.

Many of the nation’s large newspapers face the same problems including the New York Times.

Interestingly enough, the newspapers which are having the fewest problems are those which are ideologically the most neutral.

Perhaps it is just coincidence.  Perhaps those newspapers which have retained some ideological neutrality are simply run by better businesspeople.

But it is more likely that the news consumer is smarter than the publishers of the L.A. Times and the New York Times think they are.

I used to read the L.A. Times three or four times a week.  Now, I don’t waste my money on that tripe.  Same for the New York Times.  But I do read the Wall Street Journal every day as well as the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Is it possible that news consumers are smarter than publishers?

I’d bet on it.

Now the fact is that the recession has changed the economics of the news business.  So has the internet.

But you have to start with content people trust.  Opinion which is clearly labeled opinion and bias which are fully disclosed.

Then and only then do you have a product which you can sell.

Just as it’s hard to sell someone a house in a bad neighborhood, it’s hard to sell someone news they don’t trust.

So when a major newspaper calls a 30-year old crime which a man pled guilty to “the alleged assault of a 13-year-old girl” and that major newspaper happens to be in Chapter 11, maybe there is a connection.

FRED WEINBERG