Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-In some other dimension, the late John Walsh, the eccentric, crusty and crotchety Dean of LA City Hall gadflies, is probably gesticulating wildly while proclaiming, “I told you so!”
That would be his likely response to the LA Times publishing a precisely worded press-release-masquerading-as-an-article about Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti last week titled, “Garcetti calls himself an ‘older, straighter’ Pete Buttigieg.” (Photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
The article had zero news value and those who spoke about it in the media and on social media platforms zeroed in on Garcetti’s nuanced word “straighter,” as opposed to the definitive “straight,” given that the subject of Garcetti’s sexuality – which should be a non-factor in the year 2020 – has long been whispered about in and out of the media space since he first took elected office back on July 1, 2001.
In 2011, the LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero called out homophobic jokes at a roast of Garcetti by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and then-LA City Councilmember Mitch Englander.
“Straighter” wasn’t likely a random word choice, since Garcetti, the most measured, cautious and deliberate politician ever, has all the spontaneity of a well-starched straightjacket, pun not intended.
What isn’t so clear, since the quote is in the article’s title, is why Times’ City Hall reporter Dakota Smith didn’t ask Garcetti the obvious question: what do you mean by “straighter?” The inference is that Garcetti may be trying to say he is straighter than Buttigieg, but not entirely heterosexual.
While Smith wrote that Garcetti and Buttigieg are similar because they’re both Rhodes scholars, play the piano and have military-related experience, none of these commonalities made their way into the title and wouldn’t warrant an article on their own. Yet Garcetti’s orientation is in the title, but not at all addressed in Smith’s text.
It’s fair to say that those who love or hate Garcetti would not change their opinion of him simply because his orientation might be something other than heterosexual.
The last time a politician’s sexuality was a point of controversy was way back in 2004 when then-married New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey announced his sudden resignation. At that time, he also confirmed that he had a fling with a male appointee. But McGreevey didn’t resign, nor should he have, because he was gay. He resigned because the appointee was a subordinate who the Governor’s critics said had no business being appointed to the post in the first place and because the Garden State’s Chief Executive was being sued for sexual harassment by that paramour/appointee, and could also have been a blackmail target.
While a politician’s sexual orientation mattered a little back in 2004, it is largely irrelevant in 2020, as evidenced by Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s meteoric and mainstream rise in just one year from sheer anonymity to the elite crossover level of the Democrats’ primary.
If there is any actual similarity between these politicians, Walsh, the gadfly, would suggest it is between Garcetti and McGreevey.
For years before his passing in 2019, Walsh frequently and publicly hectored “Little Ricky” Garcetti for dubiously appointing “a scrumptious hunk” – and a sibling of the hunk – to City Hall positions for which Walsh said the hunk had zero qualifications. Walsh warned doing so could subject Garcetti to sexual harassment lawsuits and blackmail.
Perhaps Garcetti, who only recently signed onto former Vice President Joe Biden’s floundering presidential campaign, wishes he instead signed up with that of Buttigieg. Because in short order, Garcetti will be termed-out and craving another gig, like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary, though given the state of Los Angeles homelessness and housing, that’s laughably implausible.
That’s the thing most people care about Garcetti: how (poorly) he did as Mayor.
Whatever Garcetti is or is not, it’s all good. But rather than dancing around it, Garcetti should just say it so we can all move on. . .not for Pete’s sake, as it were, but his own.
And lastly, have you noticed that the LA Times has no comments section in an array of its recent Garcetti articles? Comments can be made on the Dodgers and Astros World Series cheating scandal and its tributes to Kobe Bryant, and many others. But not when the subject is the embattled Garcetti.
That’s what a public relations firm would do.
Garcetti’s in-house press people refused to comment on the Times story. LA Times executives refused to explain its blocking comments in its Garcetti coverage.
(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, 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.
