Re: “Walsh and Where? That’s Rall, Folks”
Always-rumpled John Q. Walsh, an oldtime newspaperman with a socko hitting style journalists were known for in the last century, Our Man at Los Angeles City Hall, scores again, it appears.
At issue: The troubled Los Angeles Times’s remarkably unseemly, exceedingly public undressing and humiliating firing of ultra-liberal political cartoonist Ted Rall.
There seems scant doubt the Times meant to plaster poor Mr. Rall with a cheap paint-job of deeply wounding embarrassment. They stopped short of forcing him into the stocks and inviting their remaining few readers to bounce rotten tomatoes off the face of the unfortunate wretch.
Mr. Walsh this morning produces a document that he says buttresses a fireworks accusation he made here six days ago in his Walsh and Where? column.
On Thursday. Mr. Walsh wrote:
Austin Beutner, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Police Chief Charlie Beck clandestinely ganged up to eliminate Times’ political cartoonist Ted Rall. The MTA’s Office of the Inspector General is requested immediately to open an investigation into a long-ago jaywalking ticket issued to the aggrieved Mr. Rall, the Times’s current cause for firing him.
While lodging this complaint with LAPD Inspector General Alexander Bustamente, we have just encountered the most difficult complaint process ever experienced over a lifetime of making such governmental complaints!
Among Mr. Walsh’s lifetime Old-Fashioned Newspaperman habits is working late at night. At 8 minutes past midnight, Mr. Walsh sent the accompanying art piece of which he says:
“LAPD OIG (Office of the Inspector General) document proves that official investigation now opened into LAPD’s illegal cooperation with LA Times Publisher Beutner’s attack on and subsequent firing of political cartoonist Ted Rall for clearly disproven circumstances alleged by LAT involving a more than decade old jaywalking ticket.”
The hard left Times daily commits sins against ethical journalism, especially, but not only, in its political reporting. No one from that gang of violators ever is scalded or scolded publicly the way the poor freelance cartoonist was. Why Mr. Rall was singled out for public execution is as much of a mystery as why the Times survives in a serious world.
Our Man at City Hall, Mr. Walsh, probably will uncover the full truth.
For what reason was Mr. Rall made a public scapegoat?
What we do know about Mr. Rall is that he did not resign, a bologna sandwich often served by embarrassed organizatiuons.
