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The top editorial in today's L.A. Times, headline Show Riordan the Door, urges Gov. Schwarzenegger to use the latest blooper by Richard Riordan to do away with the "redundant office" of Secretary of Education.
The gaffe was monumental...It would be easier to let Riordan's lapse go if he had a good record in leading a gigantic and tottering state school system during his time in office. He doesn't, and one reason is that California doesn't need him to do it.
But I guess the morning talking points from whoever the wingnuts believe dictates a political agenda at the Times didn't get to Tim Rutten. His column in Calendar today argues that "the mob calling for Riordan's head almost perfectly exemplifies one of the many things gone painfully wrong in the place where American politics and media intersect." He cites his experience as head of the Times' city hall coverage when Riordan was mayor to conclude the "stupid, dirty girl remark" was childish but intended no harm.
Meanwhile, inside the paper's California section is a news story reporting that Mervyn Dymally is blaming an aide for his gaffe of casting the Riordan remarks as a racial thing.
* More Fox: The LAT's Sunday media columnist, David Shaw, calls the network "probably the most biased of all mainstream news outlets." But, he argues, a lot of people want their news biased and opinionated. "When they complain about bias, what they're really complaining about, whether they're on the left or the right, is that the news isn't biased in favor of their side." Also: Outfoxed filmmaker Robert Greenwald interviewed at I Want Media, and a story about the film in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.