In the tightly controlled, scripted tradition of filthy backroom hometown politics, the happiest news of the past week — U.S. Rep. Diane Watson’s overdue retirement announcement — was immediately neutralized by the worst news:
The ritualistic ordination of Assembly Speaker Karen (I Am Sorry, No One Is Ever at Home) Bass as her successor in Washington. The haughty handover of duties, wink, wink, was accidentally timed to coincide with I Am Sorry being term limited in November.
This is political old-boyism at its whoring finest, as fixed as a Chicago neighborhood election.
The two useless unctuousisms may as well hang out on a Hollywood street corner, selling themselves for a dime an hour, or a nickel for all day. The distinction between prostitution and what these ladies have pulled off should appall every self-respecting voter in the region.
Both of them.
Political dilettantes hereabouts wave xeroxed copies of papier-mâché awards that Ms. Bass hands out on a block-by-block basis. They say this shows she deserves support for faithfully catering to her constituents. Then they go back to quibbling over who got the only red crayon in the room.
Nobody Will Notice, Right?
As long as the community remains quiescent, the merry-go-round for political whores will keep churning. Our localized version of Princess Di, the Big Noise from Nowhere in Particular, played a shell game for five terms and just kept right on fooling the automatic rubes on Election Day. Just the way Speaker I Am Sorry, No One Ever Is at Home will, starting in November.
You think President Where Are We is several miles shy of qualified? This booby prize will instantly drown out memories of Where.
After scrutinizing her invisible record of the past six years in the Assembly, even a slow-minded schoolboy would conclude Ms. Bass has made less difference in Sacto than you would if you drove through town with a toothpick in the trunk.
Her single dubious fame claim is that she was the first black woman “elected” — mmm, they don’t vote in Sacramento the way you and I do — Speaker of the Assembly. If the legislature were a racetrack, the cops would shut it down for terminal rigging. One could say her comically worthless successor as speaker on March 1, Johnny Perez, is culturally analogous to Ms. Bass. His handlers have only parenthetically identified him as a cousin of Mayor I Love Me. They have accented his other two talents: He is the Fattest Gay Man ever “elected” Speaker.
As you can see, the two buffoons are feature players in a Sacramento freak circus.
Unlike in Willie Brown’s day, there must be something peculiar about a Democrat legislator to warrant promotion.
Show Me a Difference?
If Madame Speaker — oh, is that a collision of two worlds — were put up for PTA president in a Kansas village, she would be booed into Colorado.
No reflection is required before judging that Ms. Bass for Ms. Watson is a fairly even exchange:
A lying, big-mouthed, unaccomplished old lady walks out one door and an abysmally ignorant, 20 years’ younger woman, incapable of an original thought, but deceptively adroit at pleasing the kingmakers, enters through another.
Consider yourself hopelessly deceived if you think that mailing the cardboard Speaker to the House of Representatives will result in even a minor benefit or protection for this section of Los Angeles.
The election is a disruption that her Democrat Party handlers tolerate. In the words of Al Gore, grandson of the late actor Chill Wills, deferring to single-party voters is “an inconvenient truth.”
Ms. Bass is a political zero. She represents a depressing example of affirmative action incompetency — that is, an invented pol who keeps getting pushed along, at the pleasure of her handlers, instead of being eliminated from the game when shown to be overmatched.
She smiles a lot. And she knows when to say “Yes, sir.”
Rain is predicted for this weekend. Typically oblivious to the elements, Ms. Bass may be spotted in a downpour, standing in an empty lot near you, preaching the virtues of climate change. Rain, baby, rain.
