Return of 'The Body Politic'

Joe Scott wrote a notes column called "The Body Politic" that ran on page two of the Herald Examiner during the 1980s. It was a must-read for politics junkies. Before the web came along, he also published a pair of popular newsletters, Political Animal and California Eye, that had every political writer around as subscribers. Scott went on to work for Richard Riordan's first campaign for mayor, and now is director of communications for District Attorney Steve Cooley. But it was only a matter of time until the newsletter guy inside took up blogging. His reincarnation of The Body Politic went online November 20, commenting on national issues. His first post quotes Aristotle and goes on to say:

The blog-o-sphere watches as a divided America reexamines its soul. After 35 years as a journalist I have broken a long silence to comment again on critical moral and political issues that impact the U.S. body politic....I hope global readers, accepting Aristotle’s definition of a political animal, will find this quick scan both provocative and mindful.

Cooley is apparently cool with his chief spokesman musing on his own time about questions like "How long will it be before freedom of speech and thought and the reality of war, injustice and evil may no longer be acceptable in the fusion of Bushworld and the Christian jihad?" Scott's day job isn't mentioned on the site. His grandfather was a famed Los Angeles attorney with the same name, and Scott is writing a novel about public corruption in Los Angeles during the late 1930's.