Karl Rove Quits, As Most Advisers, Too Late

No one can last in an advisory post forever, and Karl Rove, leaving President George W. Bush six and a half years into his presidency, has clearly outlived his usefulness.

It is not uncommon with political advisers that they are "hot" for awhile, invaluable to politicians, but that time eventually passes them by, they lose their touch or can't understand a new situation, and, by the time they leave, they are liabilities, not assets. There seems to be a limited lifetime to such jobs.

Rove helped Mr. Bush to a two-term presidency, and, at one time, he repeatedly outsmarted the President's opposition, as, for example, he did John Kerry in the 2004 campaign. But in the 2006 Congressional elections, he could not help, since Mr. Bush had dug himself into an even more difficult position in Iraq, and, then, with the dispute over fired U.S. attorneys, and the Scooter Libby case, in which he was nearly indicted himself, Rove became a heavy chain around the President's neck. He should have gone months ago.

Once they become a caricature, and not a genius, it's time for political advisers to go, and quite a few do not gage the proper moment.

This is true even of the most successful. Henry Kissinger was a liability in the end, as James Baker has begun to be. Baker outwitted Warren Christopher as an attorney representing Mr. Bush in the tight Florida "recount" situation that finally gave him the 2000 election victory. But he did not serve him so well in last year's ill-fated Baker Commission report on Iraq.

One of the clearest examples in my political reporting career of an adviser who started out brilliantly, but ended up looking rather stupid was recalled Gov. Gray Davis's political adviser, Gerry South. It was South who told Davis to move to the center and even well to the right, a strategy which worked for awhile. But South eventually carried it too far. Davis began to look corrupt, he got too far away from the Democratic base on the power shortage and other issues and he was finally disgraced in the Recall, removed from office by the electorate. He should have stopped listening to South long before.

Even the usually astute Jerry Brown kept Jacques Barzaghi on too long when he was governor. Barzaghi's personal idiosyncracies became an embarrassment to Brown. My friend the late Norman Cherniss, executive editor of the Riverside Press-Enterprise, once remarked that he didn't know another governor who could have been elected to a second term wiith a Barzaghi on his staff, but Brown pulled it off. Later, however, he should have let Barzaghi go.

I think two of the present governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger's, advisers -- executive secretary Susan Kennedy and Dan Dunmoyer -- have reached the end point of their usefulness. Both are identified with cowtowing to lobbyists, and Kennedy, in particular, may be corrupt.

In Rove's case, he was, at first, masterful in conjuring up the tactic Mr. Bush has used in the domestic politics of the War on Terror, identifying the opposition with weakness and appeasement. But the tactic gradually has lost its effectiveness, and, I think you can contend now that the President would be in a better position, more trusted by the people, had he not used it so much.

Recently, the Democrats who now control Congress have been insisting that Rove testify in the probe over the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys, and Mr. Bush, citing executive privilege, has refused to make him available.

It hankers back to Richard Nixon's initial attempt to keep his trusted adviser, Bob Haldeman, from exposure to the Watergate affair. By the time, he jettisoned Haldeman, it was too late for the safety of both men. Haldeman went to jail, and Nixon had to resign.

Sometimes, advisers leave, but only with insults for the politicians they once helped out so much. I once asked Lyn Nofziger, a White House adviser in the Reagan Administration who had been an adviser to Max Rafferty's ill-fated campaign in California for the U.S. Senate, what advice he would give Rafferty now that he had lost. "To shut up," Nofziger answered. "Max is over-exposed." But it was too late for Rafferty, who was defeated for reelection as Superintendent of Public Instruction in California and ended his career as president of the obscure Troy St. University down in Alabama.

And sometimes once-trusted advisers burn their bridges, lose the confidence of those they advise, and lose their positions. This happened with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase in the Lincoln Administration -- but only temporarily. Lincoln accepted Chase's resignation after becoming annoyed with him for quietly seeking the Republican presidential nomination against Mr. Lincoln in 1864, when Lincoln had decided to run for a second term. But he later relented and, when a vacancy opened up, appointed Chase as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Lincoln, of course, was more magnanimous than most politicians.

In legislatures and Congress, many astute advisers end up succeeding the men and woman they advised, if they are patient enough. But they aren't always patient enough, and some get cut off before the politician is ready to step down.

In the present presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain has already lost his key, long-time adviser, John Weaver, for reasons that are not entirely clear. But Sen. Hillary Clinton still has her key adviser, Patty Solis Doyle, who managed her successful campaigns for the U.S. Senate from New York and now is managing her presidential campaign.

Doyle follows a policy which has served many key advisers well. She keeps herself in the background, almost never giving interviews.

Rove, apparently, did give interviews, although most of them were for background only, or off the record. That may have saved him from indictment in the Libby case.

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The Los Angeles Times travel section should not be giving support to the tyrannical military regime in Burma by publishing as it did Sunday an article promoting travel to that country. This can only be an encouragement to the dictators who have kept under house arrest for years the Nobel Prize winner, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freely elected leader of the country in an election the junta ignored.

Just today, the New York Times prints a more appropriate article about a painter who, while imprisoned in Burma, smuggled out 300 paintings which are now being exhibited in London.

Nicholas Sarkozy Elected President Of France

The election of Nicholas Sarkozy, the son of Hungarian immigrants and grandson of a Tunisian Jew, as president of France is a heartening development.

Although in the short term, there might be some unrest in the heavily Muslim Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Muslim enclaves in France, Sarkozy can be countered upon to press recent Muslim immigrants to assimilate, and bar others from entering the country and further tipping the ethnic balance. That millions of French Muslims could be induced into modernity, rather than sticking to outdated concepts, would be highly encouraging to the world.

Sarkozy got 53% of the vote to 47% for Segolene Royal, who was bidding to become the first women president of France, and the race might presage a result in the U.S. if Rudolph Giuliani is the Republican candidate and Sen. Hillary Clinton the Democratic in next year's presidential election. Like Sarkozy, Giuliani is a law and order candidate, and like Sarkozy might be viewed as as a steadier prospect for president than a woman. Women continue to face obstacles to being elected to an executive position in many Western countries, especially if, unlike Margaret Thatcher in Britain, they appear to be weaker in any respect to theit opponents.

Exit polls also showed the Sarkozy victory to be comparable in some respects to Ronald Reagan's victory over President Carter in 1980. As with the Reagan Democrats who crossed over to vote Republican in that election, 46% of blue collar workers in France voted for Sarkozy, and 32% of those who said they favored a "green" position for environmentalism. Sarkozy even got 14% of the votes of those who said they considered themselves far to the left. Reagan's victory in the 1966 California gubernatorial election, it should be noted, came after both the Watts riot and student "free speech" demonstrations on the Berkeley campus of the University of California had disturbed many middle class and lower middle class voters, and his victory in the 1980 presidential election came after Carter's weakness in confronting the Iranian hostage crisis. By comparison, Sarkozy's victory Sunday followed last year's riots in the Muslim Paris suburbs. Sarkozy had called the rioters "scum," a term that was appealing to many of the middle class and lower middle class French.

Exit polls also showed Sarkozy had won 52% of the women who cast votes in the election, compared to only 48% for Socialist Segolene Royal, bidding to become the first woman to be elected President of France. Royal got most of the votes of younger voters, while Sarkozy did best among those 60 and higher.

Sarkozy had to overcome some serious obstacles. Outgoing President Jacques Chirac was cool toward him, the centrist candidate in the first round of the elections, Francois Bayrou, said he would not vote for him, and the rightist Jean Marie Le Pen asked his voters not to turn out for him. But he still prevailed and kept France under the more or less conservative control that has prevailed most of the time since Charles de Gaulle took back power in 1958 and created the Fifth Republic with a new Constitution.

Much has already been said about the possibility that Sarkozy will get along better with the United States than the outgoing French president, Jacques Chirac, did. But, judging from his public statements, he will take care to be somewhat independent.

The new president's friendly attitude toward Israel, is not at all uncertain. He has sounded like President George W. Bush in saying that Israel has a right to defend itself, and his election may well mark the first alignment of France with Israeli interests since de Gaulle came to power. In this regard, it was revealed on Monday that 90.7% of the 6,276 French expatriates living in Israel and voting in the French election voted for Sarkozy.

Close Election Looms In French Second Round

The son of Hungarian immigrants, Nicolas Sarkozy, and a Socialist who is bidding to become the first woman to be president of France, Segolene Royal, will face each other in the second round of the French elections May 6, after first round results Sunday showed Sarkozy with 31% of the vote cast, Royal with 26%, centrist candidate Francois Bayrou with 18% and far-right candidate Jean Marie Le Pen with just 11%, considerably off his showing last time. The other 14% went to minor candidates.

A poll indicated Sarkozy may prevail in the second round, 54% to 46%. However, my own assessment is that the election will be closer than that and Royal cannot be counted out.

Sarkozi in some ways is the candidate who would bring the most change. Of part Jewish descent, he has provided strong indications he would lean French policies toward the Israelis for the first time since Charles de Gaulle came to power in 1958, and may even be slightly more pro-American. He has tried to rub off some of the rough edges from last year's Muslim riots in France when, as interior minister he called the rioters "scum," but he worries some people as too strident on the Muslims, who are now a substantial minority in France.

With a high, 85% voter turnout Sunday, Sarkozi may have fallen a little short of what had been expected, and Royal fared a little better than expected. Sarkozi had been expected to drain Le Pen of many votes and did, but Royal had been expected to be more closely challenged by Bayrou.

Some Socialists have urged Royal, an unwed mother of four and at 53 still a glamorous figure, to try to offer Bayrou a coalition, maybe the premiership, in a bid for the centrist vote. She will pick up some votes that went to minor candidates further to the left of her, but she cannot win without a substantial share of the Bayrou vote.

Royal's showing in the first round also establishes her in the public eye as truly a major candidate and gets her past the Socialist infighting that had prevented her from having unified left wing backing. The left now has nowhere to go but her.

Still, Sarkozy is an able politician and he too could move into the center, though he probably would not go so far as to offer Bayrou the premiership.

We'll see. This is a significant election in what is still a significant country in the world, and Europe, like the U.S., is at something of a crossroads in the War on Terror.

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Joe Hutchinson, the L.A. Times design director who damaged the newspaper with an unpopular and unpleasant redesign last year, is leaving the paper for Rolling Stone. Hooray! Along with Michael Kinsley and Andres Martinez, the editorial editors who finally outlived their welcome, Hutchinson's position and influence had gradually deteriorated as his seniors realized he wasn't all that good a designer.

Some of the odd type faces he introduced on Page 1 have already been scrapped. We might wish him well now in his new job, but thank goodness he has decided to leave. I had called for his removal in a blog posted last Oct. 24. He's the latest of the Chicago-engendered transplants to leave the Times. To put it as nicely as possible, he was a flat failure in Los Angeles.

Proportional Representation Breeds Confusion

The L.A. Times, in a lead article of the California section Monday by Nancy Vogel, seems to tout an "instant runoff" voting system that allows proportional representation in elected bodies in the few places in the U.S. which have tried it--Davis, Calif., Minneapolis and Pierce County, Washington.

This is a way of giving voting minorities some representation. Ultimately, let's say, 51% vote for a majority candidate. A second-choice candidate who got 49% could under some circumstances still be elected.

But in countries where proportional representation, rather than winner-take-all, systems have been tried, like Fourth Republic France or Israel, the result has been to destroy the two-party system and allow both a plethora of political parties and, often, only poorly focused coalition government.

That system ultimately destroyed the Fourth Republic and has impeded Israel from adopting definite policies, possibly compounding Middle Eastern problems.

The founding fathers in America, it is true, did not contemplate the development of political parties. But such parties seem to be inevitable in democracies, and then the question becomes whether the system of voting facilitates a clear decision at election time.

Great Britain, like the U.S., has a winner-take-all system in separate districts which tends to magnify the disparities in results. So, say, the Labor party in Britain may get only 43% of the total vote, the Tories 38% and the Liberals 19%. But that may leave the Labor party with a solid majority of the elected seats in parliament, and the Liberals with very few.

It's said by some theorists that this is unfair to third parties such as the Liberals. But it does have the effect of electing definite majority governments, able to act.

The Times article probably should have put the issue in more context. Then this might not have seemed such a fruitful reform, although Vogel did make it clear she was mainly talking about at-large elections for city councils and so forth, not single contests such as for mayor or district attorney.

The essential thing to realize is that the American system of winner-take-all has worked fairly well for more than two centuries. The only exception is the electoral vote system in presidential elections, which sometimes has produced a winner with fewer popular votes than the loser, as in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush defeated Albert Gore. This, however, is somewhat of a separate issue.

Big Winners And Losers From 2006 Election Day

It is a peculiar thing about political reporting that the news media spends almost unlimited space on pre-election blather, who's ahead, who's behind, what will happen. But then, when the election is over, there's precious little space devoted to analysis of the results. Time magazine is a good example. It's post-election issue doesn't even point out new senators, and casts almost the whole election as having impact only on President Bush.

This blog will try to identify some of the big winners and losers, as far as I understand them.

Winners:

--Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York scored a landslide victory, carrying 62 of 65 countries in New York, including many normally conservative upstate counties. Clinton was a good campaigner in her first race six years ago, but this time, she was really outstanding, developing a sense of humor and command on the stump that bodes well for a Presidential race, if she decides to make one.

--Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut proved the voters do like independence of mind and spirit when he turned the tables on a peace candidate, Ned Lamont, who had defeated him in the primary. Lieberman also emerged as a decisive vote in the Senate, since, if the Democrats were tempted not to allow him to keep his seniority, he could simply cross the aisle and make the Republicans a majority. I gave $200 to the Lieberman campaign and am proud to have done so.

--Gov. Bill Richardson won a landslide victory for reelection as governor of New Mexico, showing that his foreign policy exploits, such as his private visit to North Korea, do not keep him from effectively minding the store at home. Richardson would make an outstanding secretary of state in a Democratic administration after 2008.

--Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. This former Clinton Administration aide ran the successful Democratic campaigns that led to winning control of the House of Representatives. His performance was so masterful, even President Bush decided he deserved personal congratulations and called him. Emanuel undoubtedly has a very bright future ahead of him.

--Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. The daughter of a mayor of Baltimore, (and the mother of six), Pelosi, an Italian-American, has politics in her blood, is determined and is capable of learning from mistakes, such as she made soon after the election by unsuccessfully backing her friend, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania for House Majority Leader.

--Senator-elect Jim Webb of Virginia. A former Secretary of the Navy, Webb's election followed extraordinary lapses of judgment by incumbent Sen. George Allen. Allen started out the race as a prospective candidate for President and ended it identified as a cheap bigot. The Democrat, Webb's victory dignifies Virginia, a state which has an illustrious political history.

--Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. Schwarzenegger's election as governor in a Recall election could be viewed as a fluke, but his reelection was the result of hard work and a judicious reworking of earlier partisan positions. He is now an established political figure commanding respect across the country, and proves there is a place for moderate Republicanism.

--Eliot Spitzer of New York. Elected governor by a large margin, this Democrat has already had a distinguished career as a prosecutor and New York attorney general. Now, he will have a bigger platform, and his national role may only be enhanced.

--Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. It's hard to make a comeback after having been forced to resign a leadership position in disgrace, but this Mississippi Republican, who won a fourth term, has now been elected by fellow-Republicans, to the number 2 leadership position in the new Senate minority. He will know better than to ever side with the late Sen. Strom Thurmond again.

--Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. The man who could become the first black President of the United States was not on the ballot, but he greatly fortified his political reputation with his campaigning and fundraising across the country. He has created the kind of inspirational persona which impelled the political careers of John and Robert Kennedy.

Losers:

--White House aide Karl Rove. Rove pulled the wool over the electorate's eyes in 2004, but he could not do so again. Although he may have been responsible for some scurrilous campaign tactics that worked, such as the racist ad that doomed a good Democratic candidate for the Senate from Tennessee, most of Rove's tactics fell flat this year. He should have quit while he was ahead.

--President George Bush. He should have fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and sought new leadership for the war in Iraq well before the election. His failure to do so, or to adopt new, imaginative ways of fighting the war, cost his party Congress and, to say the least, diminished his reputation. He now increasingly seems a lame duck.

--Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. He was not on the ballot this year, but he made one of the biggest gaffes of the year when he denigrated U.S. troops in Iraq. I believe his presidential aspirations will come to be regarded as terminated by this episode.

--Phil Angelides. The California state treasurer proved a very poor candidate for governor of California. Angelides disgraced himself in the primary by his demagogic tactics against State Controller Steve Westly and could never redeem himself after. His political career is over. That California Democrats could not put up a stronger candidate does not speak well for the party leadership.

--Rep. Katherine Harris of Florida and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of Ohio. They paid the price for earlier fostering of corrupt election practices in the 2000 and 2004 elections, both going down to one-sided defeats in races for the U.S. Senate and the Ohio governorship.

--L.A. Times publisher David Hiller. By firing the highly-respected editor, Dean Baquet, which was made known on election day, Hiller verified himself to be both very dumb and a low, venal character. He may never recover whatever reputation he had and, by using the cover of the election for his foul deed, emerged as the disgrace of the day.

Democrats Will Certainly Win The House, And Probably The Senate

--written from London

It seems very uncommon here to find anyone who wishes President Bush well in the Mid Term election, and my sense right along has been that these folks will be satisfied to see the House and Senate revert to Democratic control.

I think the President has frittered away time without coming up with a plan in Iraq and that he has nobody but himself to blame for his difficulties. Very few Presidents in American history would have stuck with Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense as long as he has.

He may say he is going to keep him now, but if he fares badly tomorrow, he will have to change positions.

Predictions are always chancy in elections, but I expect to see the Democrats take the House easily, and I would think they will skim through with six or seven gains for Senate control. I expect also that Lieberman will be reelected in Connecticut.

But it is by no means certain a Democratic victory will mean that much change in Iraq. A poll last week said that only 27% of Americans think we should withdraw from the war, even though most are against it.

There is apt to be a new order in Washington after tomorrow, and it may be a contentious two years until the next election.

L.A. Times Editorial Fails To See Clear Racism

It isn't that the L.A. Times editorial pages haven't glimmerings of good ideas. It's just that the Times stops short of fully implementing them. The thing editorial page editor Andres Martinez has seemed to feel strongest about actually accomplishing was when he dismissed all his Pulitzer Prize winners. He couldn't stand having able writers of conviction on his staff.

Last week, after the Times introduced a squalid new design, and people all over Southern California were ridiculing it, the Times letters column did run several letters denigrating the change. But after that, silence. No more such letters. Martinez had exhausted his courage in one day only.

Now, we come toward the end of the Mid Term election campaign, and the desperate Republicans become more ugly by the day. One of the worst ads has been running in the Tennessee U.S. Senate race, where the Democratic candidate, Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. is bidding to become the first black senator from the old Confederacy since Reconstruction.

The Times Sunday, in its still mainly unsatisfactory Current section, has the right idea when it offers an editorial headlined, "Racism enters the races."

But it can't quite bring itself to close the point.

When it comes to Tennessee, the editorial declares:

"The most masterful (racially-tinged ad) of the genre is the television spot in Tennessee targeting Harold Ford, Jr. Ford is a black Democrat running for the Senate against Republican Bob Corker, and the commercial ends with a bare-shouldered blond urging Ford, a bachelor, to call her.

"Ford admitted that he attended a Super Bowl party sponsored by Playboy, and social conservatives in Tennessee might be offended by this regardless of any one's race. So isn't the issue fair game? Probably. And would it be better or worse for the ad's sponsors to insinuate that Ford's flirting must bet with a black Playboy hostess instead?

"Context provides the moral thicket. Consider that when South Carolina finally repealed its Constitution's ban on interracial marriage in 1998 -- 31 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such laws -- almost half of white voters voted to keep it in place. These ads and commercials may not be overtly racist, they just hope you are."

Oops. Pardon me, the Tennessee ad has been recognized "overtly racist" by anyone who knows Southern politics and is willing to be frank. The Times editorial is another example of failing to call things as they are.

When one considers that the Tennessee Senate race could decide control of the U.S. Senate, we have to expect more of the Times than this.

Threat Of Republican Fixing Of An Ohio Election

--Written from Center Harbor, N.H.

The greatest glory of any democracy is that a change of control over the state occurs without violence or undue disruption. It is vitally important that when the people decide, the politicians of both sides acquiesce.

So it is disquieting to read a New York Times editorial yesterday that reports there seems to be a threat, perhaps not a very great one at this point, but potentially a serious threat to the integrity of the gubernatorial race in Ohio.

Ted Strickland, the Democratic candidate, has a huge lead in the polls, as much as 28 points, over the Republican candidate, Kenneth Blackwell, who is Ohio's secretary of state and thus has considerable control over elections.

This is the same Kenneth Blackwell who came under suspicion in 2004 for taking steps to enhance President Bush's showing in the Presidential election, by depressing the Democratic turnout. Had Mr. Bush not won Ohio, he would have lost the election nationwide to Sen. John Kerry, because he would not have had a majority of the electoral votes. Even though Kerry trailed in the nationwide popular vote, with Ohio, he would have commanded the electoral college and won just as Mr. Bush did with a minority of the popular vote in 2000.

Now, Blackwell has become involved in a case in which it is claimed that the Democrat, Strickland, has registered to vote from an apartment he did not actually live in. Though there is no doubt Strickland is an Ohioan and a legal resident, there appears to be a chance, even if slight, that before the election Blackwell could rule him off the ballot and be left standing as the only candidate left.

The New York Times remarks, "We are confident it will not come to that." But the Times editorial is also a warning to Blackwell not to try to fix the election.

Amen! Ohio, like the rest of the country, must be allowed to vote freely and fairly. If the Democrats win, they must prevail in the state of Ohio, and whereever else they get the most votes.

That should go without saying. But let's say it.

AP-Pew Poll Shows Interest in Mid-Term Election Higher Than 1994

In yet another ominous sign for the Republicans, an Associated Press-Pew poll out today shows that interest in the Mid-Term election, particularly among Democratic voters, is quite a bit higher than normal, higher, in fact, than in 1994, a year the Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress.

Generally, the higher the interest in an election, the higher the turnout, and when the interest soars on the opposition side, woe to the party in power.

With Iraq, North Korea, a feeling that the living standards of the middle class are deteriorating and now the Foley scandal, it should come as no surprise that President George W. Bush's administration, and Republicans in general, are not faring too well in the forthcoming election.

But the new poll fleshes that out by reporting that politics as a subject of conversation is at its highest in more than a decade.

Of 1,503 registered voters interviewed, 70% say they are talking politics with their family and friends, 43% say they are talking it at work, and 28% say they are talking it at church.

There is a definite residue of past contested elections in Florida and Ohio, both won by Bush, that is shown in the fact that 45% of the Democrats surveyed are very confident their votes will be counted this November, and only 30% of African-Americans.

Still, the survey reports, Democratic voter interest, driven by anger over the war and optimism Democrats can win in November, is much higher than normal, while Republican interest is about the same.

Something could still happen before the election to change views, but the time is growing short. I expect a Democratic victory of startling proportions.

No Endorsement For Lee Baca, An Incompetent

One of the most important aspects of elections in our democratic system is to put on pressure for change. Even if incumbents have only minor opposition, whatever votes are cast against them are valuable in situations where the incumbents have not been doing their jobs. Just as a minority of shareholders can put pressure on a recalcitrant CEO, so a minority of votes can often induce politicians to sit up and take notice.

These facts are particularly important this year in the June 6 primary in relation to Sheriff Lee Baca. As violence continues to reverberate in the sprawling Los Angeles County prison system, he has not only failed to quell it, he hasn't even done very much about it.

The L.A. Times had a shocking article Sunday, by police investigative reporters Matt Lait and Scott Glover, about the 43-year-old man who went into jail for drunk driving and was dead five days later, the victim of an apparent beating and failure to provide medical treatment for his diabetes.

A picture of the guard who is suspected of beating him ran in the story, and Lait and Glover reported this woman has been the suspect in other beatings over the years.

The question that has to be asked, that the electorate of Los Angeles County, cannot avoid, is why this woman has not been removed from the guard ranks long ago.

Yet aside from a lot of talk, nothing is happening to improve conditions in the jails. The sheriff has done little but talk, and the Board of Supervisors, to which Baca is responsible, has not forced him to undertake systematic reforms. From racial fighting in the jails, to mistreatment of odd or sick prisoners, we see one outrage after another. Budgetary problems are not an adequate excuse.

There's something badly wrong with the Sheriff's office in this county, when one considers the reigns of Pete Pitchess, Sherman Block and Lee Baca. All were rogue officers of one kind or another. Yet none of them had substantial opposition when they were first elevated (Block died before Baca was elected), and all had only scattered opposition for reelection.

Somehow, that has to change. Even if most people who are in jail deserve being there, society has an obligation to see they are treated fairly once they are there. Sheriffs who cannot provide that should be retired.

I wrote just recently, in a followup to a column in the Times by Steve Lopez, that the supervisors are not adequately doing their jobs, and called for votes against the two incumbents who are running June 6, Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina. The unquestionably intelligent Yaroslavsky in particular has been trying, but after his reelection, for which he is an odds-on favorite, he should try harder. Molina and the Sheriff, Baca, I have to say, have few redeeming characteristics.

So every negative vote in these races might do some good. We've reached the point where a voter two-by-four to the side of these officeholders' heads might at least shock some sense into them.