Nice try, guys, but you were so transparent that only low-information liberals would swallow the bait as if it were caviar.
This morning’s splash on page 1 of the Los Angeles Titanic served its gullible left-wing readership a schoolboy-level Obama-style whitewash on Mayor Eric Garcetti’s first venture into hardheaded labor negotiations – with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. These crude, odor-loving arm-twisters are a modern-day version of Hoffa’s teamster thugs of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The three-column headline, as the Titanic’s No. 2 news story of the day, “A mixed win for mayor in his lst duel with labor,” was as phony as a shell game.
David Zahniser usually is the Titanic’s most reliable hometown reporter. He failed this time.
[img]1742|left|Eric Garcetti||no_popup[/img]The notion that Hizzoner, a soft man well brought up, scored the toughest labor union west of the Pecos after less than two months in office is uneducated dime-store fiction.
Mr. Zahniser, no pink-cheeked kid, and Cathy Saillant, who shared the byline, should go on an apology tour next week.
Quoting Mr. Zahniser’s second sentence, here is a PR line left-wing politicians love to pitch to a naive public:
“The deal is expected to save $6.1billion over 30 years, in large part by cutting pension benefits for new hires and having workers go three years without raises.”
Thirty years? Oh, please. Do you remember who you were married to 30 years ago? Or where you were working?
When a tipsy politician tells you that he will be saving you, the ratepayer or the taxpayer, $6.1 billion over 30 years, tell him you want it today or you will vote him out of office.
“Gullible” is every liberal’s first name.
Liberals routinely fall for this Santa Claus line because it makes them feel good, which is their life’s goal. Ordinary Americans should be more astute.
No Price to be Paid
Within hours, President Obama shamelessly shatters high-profile promises he dishonestly made yesterday. No one in the left-wing lockstep media has the courage to call him on his disingenuity.
Do you think Mr. Garcetti, a youth of 42, is going to be held accountable in 2043 when $6.1 billion in savings turns out to be 10 times that large – on the debit side?
Here are three clues that the perceived Garcetti victory over the labor thugs not only is Pyhrric but non-existent.
• Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson is jumping with joy – as high as an adult’s shoulder – and he has been for weeks, over the deal he struck with the IBEW long before Hizzoner became involved. Be suspicious.
• The IBEW ain’t squawking, an irrefutable tipoff.
• Mr. Garcetti, who came to maturity in a gilded setting, is well-meaning. But he is not any tougher than a well-worn pillow that sags in the middle like a long-retired stripper. None of this is Mr. Garcetti’s fault. He just lacks the mettle to dicker with IBEW alley-fighters on their considerably lower burly, unfragrant, tattooed level, the dese and dose types.
[img]2104|right|Brian D'Arcy||no_popup[/img]With staggering out-of-view aid from the mercifully defeated former City Controller Wendy Greuel, the IBEW has, by years, the sweetest known labor deal anywhere in the country. And they were not even close to surrendering. To Eric Garcetti?
The IBEW gave up nothing of significance in negotiations.
Further, the one piece Hizzoner fought for – to get the embarrassingly coddled, obscenely overpaid workers to pay for part of their healthcare – eluded him.
Those are wounds he is licking, not stamps on envelops he is sending to pals to chortle about a major victory.
