He declared, brassily, that he was bypassing Los Angeles voters and turning to his ethnic cronies in the State Legislature — where he formerly served — to become Dictator for the Life of His Term of LAUSD. At his first anniversary in office, Mr. Wrong has done what you might expect of a lowly-born politician who has made his ethnic background the hammer, the glitzy centerpiece of his professional life. Arrogant, conniving, sneaky, rarely disposed to be forthright — and that is what his friends say about him. He grew up in East Los Angeles wearing a badge of brutish and brooding anger. His thuggish teenage attitudes were underpinned by questionable values. He seems never to have outgrown the most coarse aspects of his personality.
Wrong Has Not Changed
From many accounts, Mr. Wrong has lived by his battered values to this very morning. Don gloves if you anticipate shaking hands with the mayor. I didn’t, and my hands, my little hands, slid back at me. I needed a paper towel to dry off. Eschewing governance, Mr. Wrong has devoted the past 12 months exclusively to the grubby pastime of accumulating power. He is at home as a grubber. Perhaps someone of even lower character was elected to major office in Los Angeles during the past century. If so, his name eludes me. Elected to the mayor’s office with a large push at the ballot box from his pet illegal immigrants, Mr. Wrong is on a fast and dirty track to the White House. Should he slip from the rails, I would not be surprised to see him run for office in , the home of his heart. When my hair was browner than it is today, I hung out, occasionally, in baseball press boxes. A character known as Sneaks, quite a fine sportswriter actually, never seemed to be far away. His nickname traced not to his penchant for covering his feet with sneakers but for tiptoeing down the row, stealthily standing behind fellow writers, the better to see what angles they were choosing for their game reports. Never heard him coming. Never saw him leave. That captures Mayor Wrong.
This Ain’t No Time-Share Plan
Early commentaries on Mayor Wrong’s pimple-ridden deal with the teachers’ unions and his fellow smiling, silk-suited Democrats in Sacramento suggest that he and the School Board will divide power. And my grandmother wore high heels and a stovepipe hat to her own funeral. This means the art of fairy-taling is not dead. Mr. Wrong will share power the same way that Saddam evenly divided his authority with his lieutenants. Or the same way that the most exalted retired Police Chief in Culver City history, Ted Cooke, split up power with his deputies — “one for me, one for you, one for me, one for you. My great goodness golly gee, boys, how did I wind up with 99 and you wind up with 1?” Supposedly, both Mayor Wrong and the stooge-level School Board, which just underwent an enforced power diet, losing everything, would each have a say in selecting a new superintendent. Unlike
Irving Place
in Culver City , where the name of the next Superintendent is a legitimate mystery, I already know the identity of the successor to the ousted LAUSD Supt. Roy Romer. Last name Doody. First name Howdy.
in Culver City , where the name of the next Superintendent is a legitimate mystery, I already know the identity of the successor to the ousted LAUSD Supt. Roy Romer. Last name Doody. First name Howdy.
