Memo to NPR: Fact Checking is a Wonderful Thing

Yesterday, the DN linked to an NPR story that was billed as a profile of Officer Jennifer Grasso, the first woman to enter the LAPD’s SWAT school. Interestingly, the only thing it said about Grasso was that she refused to be interviewed. Some profile.

That may be the only thing the report got right. Top to bottom, the story is riddled with factual errors, blatantly stereo-typed prejudice and gross omissions (for instance, trumpeting an officers $2 million jury verdict, while failing to mention said verdict was overturned on appeal).

Here, then, is the commentary in response that I have prepared for NPR. They’ve not seen fit to get back to me. I’m shocked.

The Politically Incorrect Truth About LAPD’s First Female SWAT Officer:

NPR’s recent profile of Los Angeles Police Officer Jennifre Grasso, the first female selectee for the renown LAPD SWAT team, left out numerous key facts and advanced patently false misperceptions and liberal stereo-types.

Let’s stipulate now that Jennifer Grasso is an outstanding cop. Those who have worked with her say she’s far better than most male officers. SWAT officers I know were disappointed when she failed their stringent 2006 selection.

This doesn’t change a simple fact: If Grasso is passes SWAT school, it will only be because she’s a woman, and Police Chief Bratton wants a woman on SWAT, capable or not.

NPR failed to mention that Grasso recently committed a violation of weapons’ safety so egregious that most present SWAT officers would have been removed from the team for the same. She accidentally fired an MP-5 submachine gun, without even having the weapon in a firing position.

Before now, SWAT officers were expected to arrive with the finest weapons handling traits. Just as diamonds can be cut and polished only to standards their chemical traits permit, so too are weapons skills limited. By choosing only officers with the finest innate traits – those with skills that need to be honed, not learned – SWAT has amassed a remarkable record – killing less than 1% of the extremely dangerous suspects they confront and only one hostage ever – and arguably not even her.

In past years, dozens of male and female candidates have been disqualified for even placing a finger on the trigger at the wrong time. Every professional weapons handling standard starts with “never put a finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire.” Grasso went one better, spraying rounds into the dirt in front of her.

She literally could have killed someone, yet is still in school.

Does anyone really believe no SWAT standards have been lowered, as CPT Jeff Greer asserted?

This is no minor matter to current SWAT cops. Would you want to confront an armed suspect knowing the officer behind you had accidentally fired the same machine gun that is now inches from your back? If you’re a hostage, is that officer your first choice of rescuer?

NPR also failed to tell you that the selection procedure that picked Grasso used only five of the 18 standards that were previously used to evaluate candidates. Among the eliminated tests, was a simulated hostage rescue that very closely mirrored the 2005 incident in which SWAT is believed to have accidentally killed a little girl – the Suzie Pena case which supposedly led to this change. It is that same test that former officer Nina Acosta barely passed in the early 1990s before suing the City for discrimination. Contrary NPR’s report that she wasn’t selected because of her gender, officers who testified in the trial say Acosta hesitated for three or four seconds inside that room while fumbling with her weapon. Most police gun battles are over in half that time.

That is why Acosta’s $2 million verdict was thrown out by an appeals court, another fact NPR left out.

NPR also was quick to quote LAPD observer Joe Domanick, a journalist who’s never carried a gun, much less served as an LAPD officer. According to him, blacks and Latinos were only admitted to SWAT following a consent decree, and the unit is still largely a bastion of whites.

In fact, this is false. Among the very first SWAT officers were several highly regarded officers of a variety of ethnicities. One black sergeant is regarded by old timers as a key to the team’s early growth. A large number of the team was Hispanic. Today, African American officers make up a greater percentage of SWAT than the LAPD as a whole – something that was true before Randal Simmons was murdered in Winnetka earlier this year.

But, to Domanick and NPR (who apparrently didn’t bother going to look at SWAT), this is a white male bastion.

The fact is, contrary to NPR’s assertions, SWAT is a bastion of excellence of all colors, and diverse in its expertise. Its record proves it rarely uses force, and its ranks include some of the world’s best-trained – and most successful – hostage negotiators.

How could NPR get so many facts wrong and omit so many important points? I’d venture to say NPR is far more prejudiced against folks in blue, than SWAT cops are anyone of any color. Or any gender.

The loser in all of this is Grasso. Frankly, lots of folks can make mistakes with a weapon. Officers who have done so in the past have retested the selection process and made the team, without doubts. Grasso will not be so fortunate. Regardless of the selection standards used, she will now always be known as the woman who had the standards changed for her, and who got away with something no man ever would.

Sometimes when you shatter a non-existent glass ceiling, you still get cut be falling shards.

And, remember, the standards have not been lowered.

Idling Poor & Out of Touch Pols

I like our mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. We have a very special relationship. I met him only once, but because I was seated with important people he didn’t know that I’m not; and so exercising discretion, in at least this part of his life, he grasped my hand firmly in his two strong hands, gazed deeply into my eyes, as if no one else were in the room, and told me how sincerely pleased he was to meet me. Wow! Was he good! Imagine then my sense of bewilderment and betrayal when he never called and never wrote. Sigh. But what a guy. He never sleeps. He is at every banquet, school fair, retirement party and public event in Los Angeles. I’m sure my 8 year-old and 5 year-old grandsons were thrilled by his appearance at their elementary school fair on Saturday. When does he have time to work, to sleep, to think things through?

The great philosophical question before us is this: Are politicians born out of touch with reality and the public or do they become that way? This is variation of the “Nature versus Nurture” debate. What seems indisputable however is that politicians quickly display a degree of separation from our concerns, needs and realities.

We are witnessing our mayor proposing all kinds of increases on fees and fines. It will cost more to park. The fine for the expired meter will naturally also cost more. At the very same time our government is putting us at great economic peril and opening us up to a multi-million dollar fine by not paying the $81 million now due into our pension fund. The cost of this delay will be $15 million in the first year and accrue from there. Smart?

The garbage fees already recently raised will go up again. We recently received notice that a new company was being contracted to do our garbage pick up. Will they be sending three trucks as well? What are the ecological costs of three trucks instead of one doing our pick up? Does the increased pollutants in the air really balance the savings of trashing separation? Is the trash in fact remaining separate or is it being merged at the dump–as some have reported? We deserve to know. The new company will be replacing our black, blue and green trash receptacles. What will this cost? Who will pay? Ah, that we do know already. We will pay.

The libraries will close on Sundays, while other services will also be cut back. Money for police and fire departments will not be cut. However, we should at least ask how much of the increase in police budget will be used to pay for legal costs and civil judgments against the department? Are we paying for more protection or are we paying for a lack of professionalism and effective discipline? As we remember the May Day Melee of last year, we do need to know the true costs of policing and how much of our money goes to the beat cop and how much to cop beatings.

Most egregious and offensive of all the new “revenue enhancement” schemes is the special “congestion pricing” of our present carpool lanes. Since we no longer talk about taxes but revenue enhancements and fees, we are not supposed to notice that more is being extracted from our wallets–often for things we have already paid for.

The carpool lane itself turns out to be a misnomer. Designed to reward the socially acceptable behavior of carpooling, it was co-opted to reward those who could afford to buy a new hybrid. Then, as people actually complied, they started limiting the decals for carpool use by single drivers. Bait. Switch. Deny. Re-Purpose.

Now they are trying to takeover, slowly at first as a test project, the carpool lanes and turn them into revenue enhancers under the guise of “congestion fees.”

Now there is no question that there is congestion. Just trying to breath un-conditioned air while driving congests me and creates a hacking cough and high-pitched wheeze. The traffic is also congested. How to handle it? Well, do what they did in London and charge people to enter the city. (Although I think they’d do better to charge people to leave. Many would pay any amount.) This way the rich can drive and the poor can take the train or metro. This way the wealthy will drive in comfort and the poor will waste $4 plus per gallon gasoline idling in the traffic jams. Hmmm. The rich will speed along while we have for the first time in history the “idling poor.” This is as nasty a piece of Social-Darwinian social engineering as I have ever seen. You see, in London they have mass transit: trains, metros and several kinds of taxis. In Los Angeles we have, uh, well, not so much rapid transit. We do have freeways however.

Now they are desperately trying to take the free out of freeway. They began by building dedicated toll roads. Now they are trying to confiscate our already existing freeways and hold them hostage for money.

Aside from being elitist and unfairly benefiting the wealthy and punishing the poor, aside from doing nothing to truly solve our congestion problems, this has a still deeper flaw. Look at the gasoline tax you already pay. You and I have already paid for these roads–and we were probably fools for allowing the carpool lane precedent to begin the erosion of our rights.

I know the city and county need money. But we are not idiots. We see the fees and fines and are not happy. They want more money for less service. We can say No. We can ask them if our government really needs the staff and bureaucracy for each Council member and Supervisor? We can demand to know if they can justify being driven in city-owned and county-owned cars? Do the police need one person at a desk (sworn and unsworn) to support one officer in the field? Maybe the answer is Yes. Prove it.

None of these increased fees and fines, cut services and repossessed lanes is for any greater purpose than raising money. They are so much better at raising money than saving it. Maybe if Mayor Villaraigosa would do his own driving and pay for his own gas, he’d come to understand the plight of the growing poor and the shrinking middle class. Maybe. Mr. Mayor, be in touch.

Tom Haydens Wife Screams at Hillary on the TV, But Does She Scream at McCain Too?

Tom Hayden says that his wife screams at the television every time she sees and hears Hillary Clinton. Hayden says that at first that he thought the hate Hillary froth from his wife was irrational and even abnormal. Not anymore, he now hints that he might well join her in screeching at Hillary whenever her mug appears on the screen. But Hayden and the Mrs.s reflexive and certifiable Hillary loathe is a clinical malady that he shares with thousands of others who, like him, call themselves progressives.

Before Clinton tossed her hat in the presidential rink in January 2007, the Nation where Haydens anti-Clinton hit piece appeared, Move-On Org, Mother Jones, dailykos, Alternet, In These Times, Extra, and a legion of Huff Post writers, and nearly every assorted left and progressive blog around kept up a non-stop, drumbeat assault on Bush and his appointees bumbles, fumbles, stumbles, misdeeds, misconduct, and borderline criminal acts. They pounded away in print and on their webs on the shambles and devastation of Bushs foreign and domestic policies. Enter Clinton.

In Orwells 1984 novel on totalitarian mind manipulation, Big Brother commands the crowd to switch their hate and death chants literally in mid-sentence from Eurasia (the former enemy) to Eastasia (the former ally now turned enemy). Like the 1984 crowd, progressive writers and pundits did a stop on a dime and went from hammering Bush and company to hammering Clinton. The volte face would have made Big Brother smile.

Clinton (and Bill) in short order became an evil incarnate political con artist, a bag woman for corporate lobbyists, a consummate Democratic Party schemer and manipulator, and pathological liar. When the campaign heated up and progressives Obama love fest sprung full bloom, progressives collective amnesia about Bushs sins worsened. They were no longer the headline, page turning items on their sites and in their publications.

The evidence has mounted and continues to mount with more fresh revelations that Obama shamelessly cut deal with lobbyists, influence peddled for his pals and campaign contributors such as businessman and contributor Robert Blackwell, Jr. who he helped get lucrative state grants for his tourism and gaming operations, has been notoriously MIA on major Senate votes (no accountability trail), orchestrated sneaky negative Clinton attacks (the MLK and Lyndon Johnson flap) and launched the initial smutty and personal character attacks on Clinton in the early debates. He has run false and misleading ads and shoveled in a kings ransom in contributions from oil companies through their PACs, and corporate top brass, all the while claiming to be a political St. Paul and Mother Teresa when it comes to purity toward oil companies, corporations, and lobbyists.

Yet, Hayden, who of all people should know better from his long stint in the California legislature, and other progressives continue to delude themselves with the fiction that Obama is a new breed, breath of fresh air, progressive politician.

This is no small point. Hillarys most grievous mortal sin in Haydens eye is that she supposedly betrayed her ultra-liberal even flirt with radicalism fling in the 1960s by dumping on Obama for his connection with ex-Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and fiery cleric Jeremiah Wright. Hayden is locked in a dreamy and by-gone time warp. Clinton was a 20 ish something college girl then who like so many others of that age and generation joined or cheered radical groups and causes. She was no different than thousands of other lefties and liberals of that generation who aged, prospered, became professionals and corporate businesspersons and grew into good Democrats and Republicans. When Hayden and a handful of others became politicians they dumped their Mao and Marxist tracts in the attic (or fireplace) cut deals, compromised, and took corporate campaign dollars. The same things they rag on Clinton for doing.
Then theres McCain. If progressives have developed a bad case of collective amnesia about Bushs high crimes and misdemeanors, theyve become downright lobotomized on McCain. They have taken only the most feeble, token, and perfunctory jabs at McCain. Hayden and his wife and the others that scream at Hillary would never dare publicly say it but the unmistakable inference from their ruthless Clinton bash is if Obamas not the chosen one than better a McCain than a Clinton in the White House.

Now Back to Obama. His deal making and the betrayal of his alleged progressive leanings means nothing to Hayden. He exhorts progressives to stop the Clinton self-destructive spiral (lets check to see if Hayden has ever coupled those words with McCains name) choke off the dollar supply, write letters and pound on doors to get the Democrats to muzzle her.

A final question: When Hayden and his wife get through screaming their lungs out at Hillary do they have any wind left in their pipes to scream at McCain?

“….but SHE started it….”

The Democrats could take a lesson from USC football coach Pete Carroll, whose success is based on breeding healthy competition within all levels of his organization.

He has, for instance, seven or eight outstanding running backs, each of whom could start for most Top 25 teams. As they compete against one another, they bring out the best in one another. That’s why Pete Carroll’s team is a top national title contender for about the sixth year in a row. The tailbacks don’t beat each other up and they don’t trip each other or spread nasty rumors about none another — they just bring out the best in one another.

Ronald Reagan promoted a similar ethos when he spoke of an 11th commandment: “Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican.” His advice was ignored to an unusual extent by Mitt Romney and his talk-radio crowd this spring as they attempted to undercut John McCain, but Republicans are sufficiently organized to overcome their own previous claims that McCain would “destroy the soul of the party.”

But something worse is happening among Dems. They have presented the nation with two interesting, credible options: A man who represents hope and a woman who represents experience. The latter is intent on exploding the former’s credibility, out of her own desperate need for power. I say this as a longtime defender of her and her husband, as someone who was puzzled by how angrily Republicans accused them of being power hungry. Now I see that it’s true.

The only saving grace is that, if Obama can’t convince his own party that his brand of hope will be efficacious, he may as well lose now. Hillary is indeed testing his battle-worthiness. Still, she and Bill truly bother me now.

Vote Demographics Spells Much Bigger Trouble for Obama than Pennsylvania Loss

Barack Obamas decisive Pennsylvania loss to Hillary Clinton was predictable and inevitable. Obama pretty much confirmed that when he tossed in the towel and spent the crucial countdown hours to the primary vote at a fundraiser in Indiana. But the loss in that state is the least of Obamas troubles.

But lets start with Pennsylvania. More than eighty percent of the voters there are white, a significant percent are blue collar, rural, less educated, and less financially well-endowed. Many are gun owners and devoutly religious. The Democrats among them are solid Clinton backers. Pennsylvania voters mirror the voter profile in a majority of states.

One in five Pennsylvania voters made it clear that race was a factor in their vote. Translated; they would not vote for an African-American for president, no matter how fresh, articulate and race neutral his pitch. If Obama hadnt gotten ninety percent of the black vote mostly in Philadelphia and other urban spots in the state, Clinton would have demolished him.

Obamas one big and consistent trump card has been the youth vote, those aged 18-29. They are voting.

And the overwhelming majority of them are voting for Obama. But Pennsylvania showed the problem in banking on them to propel a candidate to victory. There simply arent enough of them. They make up slightly more than 10 percent of the vote in the state. Their number is dwarfed by older voters over age 45 that make up nearly seventy percent of the vote there. Older, white male, rural voters have been the pathway to the White House for GOP presidents since Nixon. In a head to head contest with McCain, Clinton almost certainly wouldnt beat him out for their vote, but shed be competitive. Obama wouldnt be. The highest percentage of young voters is in solid Democrat or Democratic leaning states. In 2004 the youth voter turnout was highest in Minnesota (69%), Wisconsin (63%), Iowa (62%), Maine (59%), and New Hampshire (58%). In Pennsylvania, there was even an ominous note with the youth vote; race sneaked in. Clinton did surprisingly well with white voters under age 30.

The hard numbers and demographics may be less troubling than voter attitudes and thats Democratic voter attitudes towards Clinton, and especially Obama. They can be summed up in one word: polarization. That polarization has gotten wider and deeper with every swap of a name call, finger point, and character attack by Clinton and Obama on each other. One quarter of Democrats say they will either cross over and vote for McCain or stay home if Obama is the nominee. Fewer Democrats say they will defect if Clintons the nominee. Put bluntly, a general would be hard pressed to win a major battle if one quarter of his troops desert before the first shot is fired.

The dominant issue for voters is no longer the Iraq war but the economy. Those that are most likely to stampede the polls in anger over a turned South economy are the voters that Clinton best appeals to. In exit polls, voters said that they thought Obama and Clinton would do better than McCain in handling the economy, but more favored Clinton in handling the economic meltdown.

Pennsylvania was a crowning vindication of Clintons win the big state strategy. These are the states that are in play for the Democrats and these are the states that will decide ultimately who will sit in the White House. Obamas wins in the South and West are side show, feel good wins. These are locked down red states. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, a Democratic presidential candidate has won only one of the eight western states of New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Four of the states with remaining primaries are textbook examples of the meaningless of a Democratic primary win in these states. The last Democrat to win Indiana was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The last Democrat to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Clinton was the last Democrat to win West Virginia. He also broke the Democratic presidential drought in Kentucky with his wins in 1992 and 1996. While its true that some of these states have Democratic governors and senators, this means little in a national election. The Democrats that win in these states are independent, self-reliant and conservative. They are the exact opposite of the Obama and even Clinton profile.

Theres one more troubling note for Obama. The majority of voters overall and that includes a significant percentage of Clintons backers think that Obama will eventually get the Democratic nomination they arent exactly doing handstands at that prospect. More Obama backers say that they will be just as content if Clinton gets the nomination. Fewer Clinton backers say theyll be content if Obama gets the nomination.
Obamas Pennsylvania loss does not dampen his chance of eventually getting the Democratic nomination. But the voter demographics that stack up high against him dampen his chance of getting the White House.