From Steven Greenhut:
I’m back from vacation today, and this is my first chance to write about Assemblyman Todd’s Spitzer’s letter last week regarding Mike Carona. The argument is typical of Spitzer. A trial in the press? As another letter writer added the next day, the media has no power to arrest or try anyone, but it is our job to write about events even when demagogues such as Spitzer don’t like it. The most amazing thing about the letter, however, is not his main argument, but his attempt to rewrite history.
Spitzer writes this: “I have called on the sheriff to resign his office. Even if the sheriff beats the charges, it will be impossible for him to lead our largest law enforcement agency.”
Wait a minute. No one could recall him ever doing such a thing. Dan Chmeliewski at the LiberalOC noticed this right away: “Now, LibOC readers, I’ve been looking and I have yet to find a reference of Todd Spitzer calling on Mike Carona to resign.” Over at the right-of-center OCBlog, Tomahawk did a post entitled, “When did Todd call on the sheriff to resign?” No one could recall such a thing.
Spitzer then wrote in the comments: “I was very clear that Carona should resign when I was interviewed by John and Ken on KFI either the same day I went to the Supervisors meeting or within a day or two of my testimony. My stating he should resign is not new news.”
But I recall listening to a portion of that segment and it seems that John and Ken were savaging Spitzer for refusing to call for the sheriff to resign. It was by no means clear that Spitzer had called on the sheriff to resign. In fact, he pretty clearly was standing up for the sheriff on John and Ken and at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Later on in the OCBlog comments, Spitzer responded to critics who noticed his obvious inconsistency: “John and Ken beat me up pretty good interpreting my objection to removal for an indictment as defending Carona (too complicated for talk radio, I suppose). But I also know that these type of allegations most likely mean that Carona will not recover professionally and will likely make it impossible for him to ever lead the Sheriff’s Department again if he were to come back after beating the US Attorney’s charges.”
Well, he was on John and Ken for a looong time, so he had plenty of time to make the resignation point if he chose to. His jab at talk radio is fairly lame, given that Spitzer is a media hound who is savvy in these forums. Still, no one noticed him calling for the sheriff’s resignation after the show. In fact, Spitzer’s “clear” remarks got progressively more confusing. A commenter named Redperegrine noticed this new inconsistency:
“Todd, you quote yourself above as having said: ‘He should take administrative leave.’ So, I’m a bit confused. Did you ask for him to resign or merely take a leave? He’s done the latter.”
Here’s Spitzer response:
“On the Friday before the Supervisors meeting I thought I went far enough in calling for Mike Carona to take a leave of absence. Over the course of the next week and repeated discussions and deliberations — especially after debating John and Ken for an hour about the Moorlach proposal which called for Supervisors’ ability to remove an indicted official from office (while excluding themselves; Norby later insisted that the measure apply to Supervisors as well or he could not support it) and then listening to John Ziegler’s profound and intense analysis distinguishing between the criminal procedures versus the court of public opinion (which fairly or unfairly judges all of us electeds) I was moved to go even further in my position supporting resignation.”
OK, finally, Spitzer fesses up. He did NOT call on the sheriff to resign on John and Ken (or in any other public forum). He was by no means clear. He simply changed his mind after being convinced by new arguments. Good for him. Is it that hard to simply state the truth rather than to spin the past so that it seems as if all of one’s actions were consistent?
But, yes, he did do the right thing. Congratulations, Assemblyman Spitzer, for joining the chorus of those calling for the sheriff to resign!
It is pretty laughable how all of these big government republicans, like Spitzer, himself a former prosecutor are cautioning about prosecutorial over - zealousness now that the shoe is on the other foot. Todd is a complete one trick pony in the assembly - that is, increase governments power over the individual by giving the state more and more power. What has Todd done for people in the private sector not involved in law enforcement?
For the few people out there that might still have a little “faith” in Todd Spitzer, understand that he blows whichever way the wind blows and doesn’t have an original thought. Thank goodness for term limits!
Bill Hunt called for Carona to resign over 2 years ago. He wasn’t ambiuous about it either.
Bill Hunt doesn’t try to restate history like Spitzer and the rest of the OC politiicans who have stood by and let Carona drag OC politics and law enforcmeent through the mud. (Wasn’t it Spitzer who lowered the standards to allow Carona to bring Jaramillo and Haidl into the Sheriff’s Department in the first place?)
Bill Hunt told us the truth about Carona when nobody else in law enforcement or politics would even though they all knew about it.
Bill Hunt sacrificed his career to do the right thing for us.
Bill Hunt needs to be our next Sheriff.
We here in south county call him Todd Spllllllllitzer. When the grandstand is to high to play both sides of the fence he does the Spllllllits.
Rewriting history seems to somehow be associated to oc justice as applied by public employee attorneys whereby they instruct a jury to evidence known to be false to convict…where evidence stated of innocence is deleted from record and investigation to correct is obstructed. Tampering with evidence is also in the mode of rewriting history.
Oh, geez, don’t bring Bill Hunt into it. Bill Hunt thought Carona was grooming him to take over when Carona retired and, when he chose to run for another term, Hunt got his little ego hurt and the only thing that happened is it caused a huge riff in the department. The last thing the OC needs is Hunt as Sheriff. They need to bring in an outsider to break the cycle of business as usual amongst the good ol’ boys of the Sheriff Dept.