Farewell, Joe Cerrell...

Joseph R. Cerrell, 1935-2010

The sun shines a little less bright on the American political landscape right now, especially in Los Angeles. Public policy, publicity, politics and punditry lost a pioneer and a real pro on Friday.

Joseph R. Cerrell, "a legendary political consultant and consummate schmoozer whose unrelenting but principled style won respect from allies and opponents, died of complications related to pneumonia at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, Calif. He was 75."

Cerrell’s roster of clients and friends read like an almanac of U.S., California and Los Angeles politics: "from the 1950s forward — [including] John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Al Gore, Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown, Jesse Unruh and both Pat Brown and his son, Gov.-elect Jerry Brown."

I was fortunate to have interacted a number of occasions with Joe and his colleagues at Cerrell Associates - the vaunted political consulting and public relations firm he founded in 1967. During the times I worked with Cerrell, I was lucky enough to not only hear his stories of great historical/political figures and events, but I also had numerous opportunities to learn from one of the best.

While he was a lifelong Democrat, the man they called "the Dean of LA political consultants," also counted well-known and powerful Republicans among his many friends. He and his firm had a solid reputation for integrity, diligence and smarts. He did politics the way it should be done.

In a LA Daily News obituary for Cerrell, remarks from two prominent California politicians said it all:

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, called him a "true California legend. He was the indefatigable wise man of California politics. You could always count on Joe to give it to you straight."
• County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Cerrell was "a legend and giant in the world of politics and public affairs...Joe gave politics a good name. He loved the game and we has a master of it."

Amen.

Cerrell, with his hands on the car's windshield, was a force behind many major politicians' campaigns. Cerrell served as the youngest-ever chairman of the California Democratic Party. That experience caught the eye of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960, and he became Kennedy’s California campaign manager.

(Photos: Cerrell Associates)

For information regarding the memorial service for Joseph R. Cerrell, go here...

"We can absorb a terrorist attack"

Veteran journo Bob Woodward's latest book, "Obama's Wars," won't be released until Monday, but it's already raising eyebrows.

Among the revelations in the book (according to the Washington Post):

-- [President Barack] Obama told Woodward in the July interview that he didn't think about the Afghan war in the "classic" terms of the United States winning or losing. "I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?" he said.

-- The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.

-- Obama has kept in place or expanded 14 intelligence orders, known as findings, issued by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The orders provide the legal basis for the CIA's worldwide covert operations.

-- A new capability developed by the National Security Agency has dramatically increased the speed at which intercepted communications can be turned around into useful information for intelligence analysts and covert operators. "They talk, we listen. They move, we observe. Given the opportunity, we react operationally," then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained to Obama at a briefing two days after he was elected president.

-- A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here "a potential game changer." He said: "When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that's one where you can't afford any mistakes."

-- Afghan President Hamid Karzai was diagnosed as manic depressive, according to U.S. intelligence reports. "He's on his meds, he's off his meds," Woodward quotes U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry as saying.

--By the end of the 2009 strategy review, Woodward reports, Obama concluded that no mission in Afghanistan could be successful without attacking the al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens operating with impunity in Pakistan's remote tribal regions. "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," Obama is quoted as saying at an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009. Creating a more secure Afghanistan is imperative, the president said, "so the cancer doesn't spread" there.

Bob Woodward...

The part that bringing the most attention/criticism has been this: "Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, 'We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger.'"

So, is this about "acceptable losses" or is it justifiable pride in the nation's strength and resiliency? The biggest criticism against this line of thinking is that "the best defense is a good offense." Chiefly, there are those at the Pentagon, Langley, Foggy Bottom - heck, even in the administration - who think there is no such thing as "acceptable losses."

The quote does ring a familiar bell...

General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
President Merkin Muffley: You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.

(via IMDB)

My convo with Carly...

Actually, "our" conversation with Carly - Carly Fiorina.

Earlier this week on the John Batchelor Show, Messrs. Batchelor, Devin Nunes and I interviewed Fiorina, the woman looking to unseat three-term U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

Carly Fiorina...

The following, from Batchelor's blog, describes the encounter:

"Spoke to Carly Fiorina and Devin Nunes CA-21 (R) re the senate race in California, and learned that Barbara Boxer has just launched an ad campaign attacking Fiorina as a rich, spoiled, indifferent and failed capitalist for her tenure at HP. Fiornia pushed back accordingly; mention that building HP into the big cheese in Silicon Valleyis her legacy. The surprise to me is that Boxer has heretofore committed her campaign to preaching on green jobs and energy reform in California and nationally, and now she is shifting to ad hominem. Not a strong move."

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA 21)...

Batchelor continues: "Devin Nunes spoke passionately of the mandated water troubles in the San Joaquin Valley caused by radical environmentalists in San Francisco and Los Angeles and by regulation from Sacramento. Jeff Bliss raised the San Bruno investigation, and Carly Fiorina commented that Barbara Boxer ran a committee on the environment and energy and that she had done nothing in her service to address the out-of-date energy infrastructure in California that gives us a sixty-year-old pipe failure. Of the Tea Party, Carly Fiorina said she has attended many events and will again and welcomes the energy of citizens who are disgusted with the business as usual of Washington and Sacramento."

The podcast is here...

The John Batchelor Show...

Raising (hell with) Arizona...

Several weeks after its passage (and later amending), Arizona’s controversial immigration law continues to be…controversial – to say the least. From the Phoenix Suns (er, sorry, Los Sols) to President Barack Obama, everyone seems to have an opinion – even if they don’t know what they’re talking about (or if they’re just being cynical and playing the race card)...

Yesterday, America’s second-largest city (and arguably the largest Mexican-populated city in North America), Los Angeles made a statement. After a morning of grandstanding, the LA City Council voted to bar official travel and contracts with Arizona. What’s the immediate impact of that? According to LA city officials, it is believed that approximately $8 million in contracts can be canceled, immediately, without any legal repercussions. In the long-run, it’s estimated that losing the City of Angels’ official business will hit the Grand Canyon State to the tune of about $50 million-plus, annually. As Officer Vic (who I appeared with on the Brian Sussman show on KSFO-AM 560 this a.m.) put it, “…glad to see they got all those potholes taken care of.”

LA’s decision runs counter to the sentiment being expressed nationally according to a number of polls. A new poll from the Pew Foundation shows that, “Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them.” Is anyone listening?

The controversies continue to build this week as “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill targeting ethnic studies, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure. State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district's Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people. Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.’It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it,’ Horne said.” (h/t: Yahoo!/AP)

All of these resolutions and polls, however, are meaningless – at least in the sense that the law will eventually be ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court down the line. According to numerous experts, including the man who helped co-write it, the chances of it being upheld are quite good.

We shall see…

Late addition: Wouldn't it be nice if the nation's chief law enforcement officer, the U.S. Attorney General (Eric Holder) actually read the Arizona statute before criticizing it? According to a Washington Times story, Holder is quoted as having expressed concerns about the law but he really can't explain anything about the law because he "hasn't read it." He also, prior to asking his staff to read it and brief him on what it means, said the law's passage was "unfortunate." Why is that, Mr. Holder? If you haven't read it and don't know what it says, how can you honestly criticize it?

Saturday night's alright for...radio

Another Saturday night with nothing to do? Then listen in...


Tonight on The John Batchelor Show, beginning at 6:15 p.m. (Pac Time), I’ll join John’s guest host, the redoubtable Simon Constable (a Dow Jones Newswires columnist and host of the News Hub Web Show ), to discuss California politics and Los Angeles’ budget crisis.

You can listen to the show on WTTK-FM 96.9 Boston, WABC-AM 77 NY, WMAL-AM 630 Washington, D.C., XM/Sirius Satellite Radio and on more than two dozen other stations (check local listings for details). If you’re not in one of the broadcast areas, you can tune-in via any of those outlets’ websites.

And as always…thanks for listening.


Simon Constable - taking it to The Street...

Earthquake watch - 2010!

Today's shaker? No big deal...

Tonight on The John Batchelor Show, at 9:50 PM (Pac Time) I’ll report on this morning’s magnitude 4.4 earthquake just a bit outside downtown Los Angeles.

You can listen to the show at WTTK-FM 96.9 Boston, WABC-AM 77 NY, KSFO-AM 560 San Francisco, WMAL-AM 630 Washington, D.C., XM/Sirius Satellite Radio and on more than two dozen other stations (check local listings for details).

If you’re not in one of the broadcast areas, you can tune-in via any of those outlets’ websites. And as always…thanks for listening.

(Photo below provided purely for dramatic purposes!)

I love L.A...

"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."

When Mark Twain supposedly provided the above quote during California’s early days, settlers already knew then that the future of the West didn’t lie in rich veins of gold or in glittery flakes strewn along the bottoms of mountain streams. No, they understood – as so many others have come to – that no business, community or state is possible without H20. And in California, where agriculture is the No. 1 business in an economy that is the eighth-largest in the world, water is everything.


Prescient...

A town founded as a Spanish pueblo in the near the Southern California coast back in the late 1700s – the City of Angels (aka: Los Angeles) – was experiencing explosive growth at the beginning of the 20th century. The city fathers, The Powers-That-Be, Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times and others knew that if LA was to grow and thrive, it – like the crops of The Nation’s Salad Bowl (aka: the San Joaquin Valley) – would need Mother Nature’s precious elixir.

So in a story we all know, thanks to a little film starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston back in 1974 (directed by Roman Polanski), LA – with the help of all sorts of politicians, moneymen and ne'er-do-wells – raped California’s lesser-known Owens Valley. William Mulholland (played by Huston in the film), then-superintendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power created the 223 mile-long Los Angeles Aqueduct (completed in 1913) to divert water from the Owens River. As one source notes, “Much of the water rights were acquired through subterfuge, with purchases splitting water cooperatives and pitting neighbors against each other. The purchases led to anger among local farmers, which erupted in violence in 1924, when parts of the water system were sabotaged by local farmers.”


William Mulholland - the godfather of LA water...

The rape of the Owens Valley (which LA repeated in the early 1970s), not only left a well-irrigated, fertile agriculture area a shadow of its former self, but it helped set the stage for decades of California water wars to come.


The Owens Valley and its neighbor, the San Joaquin Valley - it's all about money, water and food...

Today, in the northern part of the state, the failing levee system – which protects the San Joaquin Valley from the intrusion of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s salt waters – has been declared the nation's most endangered waterway system by the environmental group due to water shortages caused by the Delta's environmental challenges, declining fish populations and aging levees, among other problems. Meanwhile, the farmers of the Central Valley, because of federal Endangered Species regulations, are getting 10 percent or less of the amount of water due them – which, when combined with the failing economy (California’s unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, but farm communities in the San Joaquin Valley are experiencing jobless rates of 20, 30, 40 percent – and more).

In addition, Southern California – which has grown far beyond anyone’s imagination – is always in a water deficit. Unable to keep itself watered, it constantly draws on any source it can…often drawing the rest of the state’s ire.

Case in point (from the Contra Costa Times): “Invoking the specter of a century-old Los Angeles water grab, Northern California farmers have filed a lawsuit that may escalate the state's ongoing water crisis. The farmers say the San Joaquin Valley communities hardest hit by drought and new protections for endangered species in the Delta — including the nation's largest irrigation district — are nevertheless illegally getting water that belongs to the northerners. ‘The last thing we want to see is the Sacramento Valley become another Owens Valley,’ said Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority general manager Jeff Sutton. He was referring to the early 20th century raid on the Owens Valley by Los Angeles, an episode made famous by the 1974 movie ‘Chinatown.’"

Against the backdrop of this latest salvo, Californians also are considering an $11billion-plus ballot proposition (which contains more than $2 billion in earmarks) in June that is championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but opposed by more than 55 percent of voters surveyed (not to mention key environmental groups). According to a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, “The $11 billion bond to overhaul California's water system that will go before voters in November is in big trouble, according to a poll released Thursday. The survey, paid for by opponents of the bond measure and conducted by veteran San Francisco pollster Ben Tulchin, found that 55 percent of registered voters sampled would vote against the bond if the election were held today, while 34 percent said they would vote in favor. Tulchin said support for the bond is ‘beyond low.’"

In addition (according to a report in the Sacramento Bee), “U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation to make it easier to transfer water to San Joaquin Valley farmers from other areas of the state, part of her ongoing effort to help farmers contending with water shortages. Feinstein made headlines last week with a controversial proposal to amend a federal jobs bill to guarantee San Joaquin Valley farmers 40 percent of their contract water deliveries from the federal government. Her 'Water Transfer Facilitation Act' has received far less attention. It was approved by a Senate committee in December and awaits a floor vote. The bill aims to streamline regulations surrounding water transfers among Central Valley farmers and water districts, who generally get their water in one of two ways: Some have actual rights to a specified allotment from rivers; others buy water under contract with the federal government. In a given year, those who contract for water get only as much as the government thinks it can provide based on drought conditions and environmental need. Such is the case for many farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, who last year got just 10 percent of their contracted amount. The system also allows for users with water rights to sell a portion of their water to another user. Feinstein has said her bill would allow an additional 300,000 acre-feet of water transfers among Central Valley users. One way it would do so is by waiving individual environmental reviews to protect the Sacramento Valley's threatened giant garter snake. Instead, a blanket review would cover all the transfers.”

What the Feinstein amendment doesn’t tell you, however, is that if it were passed it will directly benefit one of her biggest supporters – “Stewart Resnick, a Beverly Hills billionaire and one of the largest landowners in the southern Central Valley who controls the Kern Water Bank. Resnick is a political contributor to Sen. Feinstein, and if her amendment passes, he will receive more Delta water to sell at a profit to southern California developers” (according to the Fresno Bee – the paper of record in the San Joaquin Valley).

DiFi...

Some things never change.

Blame it on Rio?

So the $10 million-plus trip was all for naught. Neither the visage of Hope & Change™, the supreme “sacrifice” Mrs. Obama made, nor the presence of The Oprah was enough.

The sad news for Chicago was that it lost out on the 2016 Olympic games to Rio de Janeiro, despite – for the first time in history – a U.S. president (and a First Lady) traveling overseas and pleading the case before the international community – this time in Copenhagen, Denmark. (By the way, that’s the same community of people who would love America better if we elected the community organizer from Illinois/New York/California /Indonesia /Hawaii.)

For the record, Tokyo – which has previously hosted the Summer Games - also lost (reportedly due to the IOC’s fears of Godzilla wreaking havoc at some of the Olympic venues). Additionally, Madrid tried winning a second Summer Games for Spain, but apparently its king hasn’t had the same kind of pull since Sir Francis Drake took out his ancestor’s armada (which left many Spaniards calling for an immediate return of Generalissimo Francisco Franco!).

So that left Rio, which won it over Madrid in a final-round landslide that was only slightly more suspenseful than the first round of questions on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

Ah, Rio: home of the thong bathing suit, the Brazilian wax job, the Girl from Ipanema and Brazil nuts…oh, yeah, and an annual murder rate that makes Chicago’s look like The Amateur Hour. My question about Rio is this: OK, it’s in the southern hemisphere where their seasons are reversed from ours…so will this be held in our winter? If so, does that mean bobsleds on Copacabana Beach?

It will be interesting to see what Rio, perhaps one of the most vibrant cities in the world as well as one of the most violently divided between rich and poor, does to mitigate its many “challenges.” Will the stultifying and violence-inducing poverty of its slums – the favela – be kept out of the television cameras’ frames? Perhaps the Brazilian government will carry on the great pre-Olympics tradition of host countries forcibly relocating, jailing or killing “undesirables” and political dissidents.

It also will be interesting to see the legacy the Olympic Games leave Rio once the torch is extinguished and the IOC pulls up stakes. Los Angeles, home of the 1984 Games, monetized the heck out of the quadrennial spectacle and to this day programs throughout the area still financially benefit from those Games. On the other hand, the Athens Games celebrating the Olympics Centennial in 2004 put such a huge financial burden on Greece that the European Union downgraded Greece’s credit rating to “California.”

Frankly, I’m a tad surprised Chicago was passed over (and in the first round at that – heck, Chicago didn’t even make it to the Miss Congeniality part of the beauty pageant). I couldn’t imagine the president would’ve wasted all that political capital if it wasn’t a done deal before he showed up to speechify to the International Olympic Committee. I mean, why fly two Air Force jets (Air Force One for him and the First Lady Special for her), ship Secret Service and advance people overseas and leave a significant carbon footprint if it wasn’t a sure thing?

Of course he was under great pressure to go. As The One, the wheels are already in motion to create some kind of legacy. After all, he left none from his days in the U.S. Senate nor did he from his stint in the Illinois legislature. And with Gitmo still open, renditions still taking place, warrantless wiretaps still occurring, communications intercepts still being utilized, troops still in Iraq, Afghanistan going badly and healthcare – er, health insurance – reform looking like the sequel to “The Titanic,” there is a rising level of desperation to “just do something!”

Most importantly, he was under pressure from the Chicago Machine to get over to Legoland and win one for the Grifter. Well, plural…grafters. The Machine – Richard Daley Jr., and a host of others helped launch Obama and it was payback time. Heck, it’s been said their pals invested in a lot of land down by the river, which would have likely been the site of the Olympic Village (“how convenient!”). Now what do they have to show for all their efforts, money and sacrifices?

Oh, well. At least Chicago’s got the Cubs.