Villaraigosa: Failure at home, mayor searches for friendlier surroundings

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Unable to fool his own constituents anymore, L.A.'s mayor is taking his empty suit on the road, becoming president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (yee-ha!!). He'll no doubt be spending much of the next two years trying to dredge up some sort of legacy (education and transportation in particular) and position himself for a job in the Obama White House (assuming there's a second term). Villaraigosa wasn't quite a civic embarrassment during his Sunday appearance on "Meet the Press," but he clearly seemed out of his depth, flanked by WSJ Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (camera caught a couple of his deer-in-the-headlights stares). As we know by now, the mayor doesn't do very well when forced to deviate beyond his talking points and prepared texts. He comes up at about the 6:40 mark.