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The Tape Doesn't Lie

Gov. Schwarzenegger's spinmeisters were working overtime yesterday in a desperate attempt to distract from their inability to stage-manage their boss' racism and sexism.

After the Governor embarrassed himself into apologizing for derrogatory comments made about a Latina legislator and other Republican lawmakers, his taxpayer-funded staff has successfully steered the mainstream media into making this an insider story about how the tapes were obtained by the Times.

It is clear to anyone who has ever done Internet research that Schwarzenegger's staff did not properly protect those audio files, and that the Angelides campaign took advantage of that incompetence by digging around on the public website and finding them. Whether the campaign gave the tape file to the Times is irrelevant -- people leak public documents to the press all the time in politics. It's neither interesting nor a crime or wrongdoing of any kind.

Again, it is merely a distraction from the real issue -- Schwarzenegger behaving in a way that is unbecoming of a top elected leader in the largest state in the country -- and another chance for right-wing Republicans to attack the L.A. Times for being the only paper willing to engage in real investigative journalism when it comes to Schwarzenegger.

The tape story and Schwarzenegger's sexist comments reminded people that Schwarzenegger is a sexist pig, in part from the Times' coverage before the 2003 recall of dozens of women who said they were groped by him. That isn't so happy-making for his team and the Republicans, so they are relying on other, completely unfair, means to dig themselves out.

It is not unlike Joe Lieberman's claims on the verge of his Connecticut Senate Primary loss that his opponent Ned Lamont hacked his website.

In both cases it comes down to two things: desperation and incompetence.

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