The news that LA Mayor Antonio Viilaraigosa has been having an affair with a Telemundo news anchor and is leaving his wife should be scarcely shocking to anyone remotely familiar with the ins and out (pun intended) of Los Angeles politics.
Everyone I know clued into the local political scene knows that Villaraigosa has a history of Clintonesque behavior when it comes to the opposite sex. What’s remarkable in this case is that he apparently intends to marry the woman. Time will tell on that one.
But the news here, of course, is the non-reporting of the news by the Los Angeles Times. Are we supposed to believe the LAT was ignorant of what was well known by blogger Luke Ford and had been reported by the woman herself on television one month before? Si quiere comprar el puente de Brooklyn… Pathetic, if you think about. The LAT either has the world’s worst collection of hometown reporters or they don’t think this is news. I wonder if, say, Dick Cheney were leaving his wife the LAT would report it.
No wonder the LA Times is having trouble staying afloat. It doesn’t feel the need to feed the beast.
The Giuliani, Hanover, Nathan imbroglio kept a lot of people employed here in NY tabloid land. Sex sells and when you mix it with politics you get a president impeached, something that has only happened twice in over 200 years.
Mickey Kaus has it about right when he says;
“Gossip is not only a promising cure for voter apathy, it’s an inevitable consequence of non-apathy. People will care about politicians they know something juicy about, and they will want to know something juicy about politicians they care about. A virtuous circle! That’s the political culture New York City has. That’s the political culture Southern California needs. But the high-minded Times suffocates it in the crib.”
Don’t do Paris, do the mayor