"Eric Garcetti, Falsus In Omnibus" by Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - The Latin phrase falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is one that you'll only hear in legal circles or from the keyboard of a raconteur. It means that if a person lies about one thing, you can reasonably conclude that they're lying about everything.

Five years ago tomorrow, the Los Angeles Times gave an unwarranted 46th birthday gift to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; an endorsement for a second term as the city's chief executive, despite 16 years of astonishing failure, lies and a corrupt City Hall (and its typhus outbreak) as a Councilmember, City Council President and Mayor.

In doing so, the Times, which asks us to trust its judgment, especially on its political endorsements, gave the rest of Los Angeles its latest middle finger, double-fisted in this case because it was clear to most everyone else at the time that Garcetti was failing and likely to sink further.

Today, Garcetti has once again proven to the nation that he is willing to lie about anything, for any reason or no reason at all. And thanks to us trusting the Times, he has once again shown the entire nation what disengaged rubes we are for following its advice.

This column could share dozens of links about Garcetti's maliciously misleading statements, hypocritical behavior and lying for no particular reason. But it's exhausting to recap every way that he has misled the public over the past 20 years.

It’s clear that Garcetti either thinks he’s a great liar or doesn’t care if anyone believes him. It’s right out of the Gavin Newsom playbook; Just keep lying, baby. The local media will run interference for us and eventually re-endorse us.

As much of the nation knows, at Sunday’s NFC Championship Game in Inglewood (not L.A., ahem…), Garcetti and the Governor posed for photos with, among others, someone who is at particularly high risk of severe illness or death if he were to catch COVID, Magic Johnson.

Newsom, a buffoon who, like Garcetti, has been repeatedly endorsed by the L.A. Times (to be Governor and against his subsequent recall), was not only caught posing maskless indoors with Johnson but subsequently lied when questioned about it.

Newsom said that he had only removed the mask to pose for the photo with Johnson or “to sip some water” (again, this column says ‘ahem.’). But the next day, footage from the Sofi Stadium Fan Cam showed Newsom sitting like a three-year-old, maskless (with a mask dangling from his hear) chatting up a seat neighbor and breathing on top of unsuspecting swells seated in front of him in the corporate box.

Garcetti must have figured that since the press (which in Los Angeles means the LA Times and the local electronic media parroting what it reports) gave Newsom a free pass, so why not come up with another obnoxious lie of his own about his photo with Johnson?

"I held my breath (while posing maskless with Johnson)" Garcetti claimed neither realizing nor caring how utterly phony it reads.

Friends, that's the kind of thing only a bonafide sociopath says, like Bill Clinton claiming that he "didn't inhale" decades earlier.  Even L.A.’s abundance of meth addicts wouldn't buy Garcetti's claim, and they know a thing or two about the subject.

The Los Angeles Times, long a protector and promoter of Garcetti and Newsom, will never admit it was wrong to endorse and recommend Garcetti (and Newsom, et al) over and over to Southern California over the past two decades.

Garcetti’s lies have a rich history not unlike his need-to-be-noticed by taking attention away from the sports stars of the day, perhaps due to his being a life-long weenie.

Case in point, when Garcetti - long an uptight censor at City Council meetings that he ran as its president - dropped the F-bomb at the June 2014 Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup championship celebration.

When it was Garcetti's turn to speak, he said there are two rules for politicians: “...never, ever be pictured with a drink in your hand and never swear. But this is a big fucking day."   

Then he raised his aluminum bottle of Bud Light.

What a rebel. Pass the Fresca.

If only Garcetti could just be a regular guy in the crowd, perhaps nip some Jack from a flask and not inject himself into others’ limelight.

I tell ya if you put Eric Garcetti, Dave Chappelle and Hunter S. Thompson in a room, you couldn't tell them apart, and one of them is long-deceased…..

But wouldn't it be great if the Los Angeles Times, which played a big role in inflicting Garcetti on us and keeping him in control of our lives for two decades, were to write We repeatedly endorsed Eric Garcetti to represent you and we were wrong. We are sorry. We had high hopes for the guy, but he has comprehensively failed Los Angeles, as have we, but we can no longer deny that the guy lies through his teeth with the ease of O.J. Simpson.

Oops. Don’t want to remind Los Angeles of the connection between the names Garcetti and O.J. Simpson. Because that Garcetti, his dad, former L.A. District Attorney Gil Garcetti, was a colossal failure, as well.

But wouldn't that be great? If the Times admitted what everyone knows in their gut, that Garcetti is a failure, who lies for any reason or no reason, and doesn't care.  The Times doesn't even need to apologize, though that'd be nice.  

Just admit it. Admit that the man is a sociopath. 

Otherwise, people who haven't already learned to distrust the L.A. Times’ political endorsements might do, as I paraphrased the other day, what Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) told James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce) in a booze session at the bar in Glengarry Glen Ross, “...subscribe to the law of contrary L.A. Times Opinion... If it recommends one thing, then I say, vote the other way.”

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(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and runner-up in 2021 in the Activist Journalism category. He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers.)