Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-Thank god someone in the national media finally pointed out what many in LA, outside of most people in the local media, have long whispered: LA Mayor Eric Garcetti is a kooky guy hell-bent on obtaining power and attention to satisfy his peculiar cravings rather than doing what he was hired to do: govern fairly, transparently, and honestly.
Last week, political commentator Tucker Carlson did this by precisely laying out the mayor with truthful zingers like “Eric Garcetti is a neurotic megalomaniac.”
Carlson brilliantly exposes how Garcetti has forced ridiculous beach rules on Los Angeles without a shred of scientific evidence on why we can’t lay on dry sand, but it’s okay for us to walk through wet sand while claiming that his decisions are based on listening to the scientists and medical professionals, even though Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, does not have a medical degree. . .or any course of study close to it. Ferrer is a Ph.D. in social welfare. She is a doctor in the same way that radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose Ph.D. is in physiology, is a doctor. Their educational accomplishments are exceptional, but medical training it is not.
This column has repeatedly exposed Garcetti’s neuroses and lies. There was his fawning for the camera while getting a high-five from a Muslim child. . .and then wiping his hand on his jacket. There was his bizarre reference to his being “a straighter Pete Buttigieg,” instead of his simply coming out and saying he is bisexual since no straight man ever refers to himself as being like a gay man, but only straight-er, emphasis on the “-er” part. The only reason Garcetti’s sexuality is even a topic of whispers is that he chose to make it one. Otherwise, who cares? There are Garcetti’s lies about veteran homelessness; his falsifying thousands of pet “adoption” statistics and then reversing them when this column exposed them; and his going to a championship parade for the LA Kings with a light beer in-hand, and saying “There are two rules in politics. They say ‘never, ever be pictured with a drink in your hand, and never swear,’ but this is a big fucking day.”
What a rebel. What a case study. This, from the same guy who spent a fortune of taxpayer money trying to stop people from using the exact same language at LA City Council meetings when he was in charge of them.
Carlson’s take-down is just as relevant because Garcetti’s neurotic megalomania now hurts every single one of us, and millions far beyond the city he is supposed to lead, because he appears on TV every single day to explain why we, and those outside of the city, are being held back from living our previously productive and prosperous lives based on his whims.
In one of the video clips Carlson plays, Garcetti says, “Beaches will open up this week for exercise and active recreation only in the wet sand, I guess, is a good way of thinking about it. Not hanging out and tanning in the dry sand.”
Carlson then pointedly asks, “What’s the science behind this? Once again, of course, there is none. None! This isn’t reasoned, thoughtful policy making. It is the expression of an autocrat who decided he must look tough by doing something or he won’t get elected president, which has always been Eric Garcetti’s primary goal. It’s scary if you think about what this means. It means that America’s second-largest city has fallen under the total control of a neurotic megalomaniac who is terrified of dry sand. Eric Garcetti’s personal phobias are now law in Los Angeles. It makes you think of the final days of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, ranting at his subjects from the podium imposing his strange obsessions on the helpless population. It would not be surprising to learn that Eric Garcetti is a compulsive hand-washer with a very strange personal life.”
That’s the LA understatement of the year.
Carlson goes on to explain that Garcetti’s potentially never-ending shut-down is also designed to suppress ongoing efforts to recall him even in the late stages of his torturously long City Hall tenure, which stunningly predates 9/11. Garcetti never flew the coop and he is driving the rest of us cuckoo.
Here is Carlson’s entire clip, and he deserves a standing ovation for it. It is spot-on. It is years overdue. And it is crystal clear because it comes from outside the funky LA media and political bubble, whose occupants (especially those at the LA Times) should sit up and watch it over and over until it sinks in.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and the Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine, among other publishers. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
