[img]1|left|Ari Noonan||no_popup[/img]This is a story about two persons confronted by huge personal crises, and the difference in their approaches:

What is the score in The War?

Fifteen days after the police union went very public with a much-rumored calendar of not only gripes but alleged violations against the police chief, the Culver City landscape is a bundle of…silence.

“The union has to be disappointed,” a well-known figure at City Hall said this afternoon. “All the effort they put into publicizing their unhappiness with the chief, their overwhelming no-confidence vote, and I don’t think all of this has bought them any communal support.

“I would say Don Pedersen is winning. He is out there talking, on the record, telling why he believes he is clean of the accusations, vowing to see this all the way through.

“He is not making any counter-charges, but taking the high road.

‘I am around the community every day. I hear no buzz, not anything. The union hasn’t gotten any traction.

“The union bought full page advertisements in the Culver City News and the Culver City Observer. They rolled out a long, detailed press release all on the same day, July 22, and they had somebody at the concert at City Hall last night handing out flyers.

“What good has this done? I see, I hear no support from them, not a word from the ‘little people,’ those residents beyond the one hundred who come to all events all the time.

A Test of Sustainability

“Unless or until there is an outcry from the people,” the lady said, “I cannot see the union prevailing.

“The question is, who is going to outlast whom?”

Another City Hall veteran issued a warning to the Police Officers Assn. to be more judicious in portraying Culver City as a crime-ridden no-man’s land because of the chief and policies of his that they don’t like.

“Their differences are labor-management issues. They ought to be resolved within the department.

“If I were a gambler, my money would all be on Pedersen to see this through.

“That is what I keep hearing him say.

“The union needs to remember something about the charges they have been making. When they talk about how dangerous this community has become, they should remember they are the ones who are policing out there. These kinds of accusations, telling residents that it isn’t safe to go out at night, that the streets are incredibly dangerous, I believe, can damage their cause.

It’s Not Working

“In a fruitless attempt to rally community support, they are portraying Culver City as worse than South Central.”

Speaking of South Central, this seems to be a season for personalities under siege.

I was pondering Chief Pedersen’s tight plight last night while listening to Warren Olney of KCRW (89.9) artfully, effectively interview one of the loudest, angriest voices in Congress.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, has made a career out of playing victim, with an accent on being a target of racism. She has been sent to Congress 10 times, which tells you where the least informed Democrat voters in Los Angels live.

As you may know, Ms. Waters has been charged by her colleagues with ethical violations involving a New England bank and her oh-so-silent-invisible husband Sidney Williams. The accusation is that she used her office as a fiscal footsy vehicle to channel millions to this minority owned bank.

Her appearance on “Which Way, L.A.?” was billed as Ms. Waters’s coming-out party. For the first time, she would part the curtains on the ugly ethical charges filed by her colleagues.

However, she tap danced. She embarrassed herself in the company of the classy, impartial Mr. Olney by declining to meaningfully answer any of his questions. All the aging old phony did was protest that she was innocent. I have known dying parrots more articulate than mumbling Ms. Waters.

When Mr. Olney quizzed her on the charges, she retreated into her scam mode and said she said on legal grounds she could not discuss them. At that point, I would have reached for my car keys.

She has been running around in the East like a circus clown, proclaiming that the accusations against her are race-based, a once valid charge that the bankrupt left has trivialized down to a nonsense level.

When Mr. Olney asked her if the case against her is based on her race, she burbled, shifted her teeth, grunted like a dying quail and conceded she could not back upher claim.

If Ms. Waters followed Mr. Pedersen’s model, she would not have to rely on uninformed voters to return her to Washington for two more painful years.