Video sucks.
As the most destructive fire in the city’s history rages, tough Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stands silently as a British reporter asks if she has anything to say to Angelenos. She was on her way back from Africa, halfway around the world, to attend the inauguration of Ghana’s president.
“Do I owe the public an apology for being absent while my house was on fire?” Sky News correspondent David Blevins asked Bass as he waited to disembark at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday afternoon. As she and her entourage left, he continued to ask questions such as, “Don’t you have anything you want to say to the people today?”
Bass mostly avoided eye contact and didn’t say a word — not even “no comment.”
The first-term mayor will have much to say at a press conference in a few hours, surrounded by Los Angeles County political leaders, including council members, supervisors, sheriffs, police chiefs and superintendents. . In his speech, Bass called on everyone to rally together, calling the blazes in the city and nearby suburbs, including the Pacific Palisades, Sylmar, and around Pasadena and Altadena, “a great fire.”
“This is a big moment,” she said. “It’s a big moment for us all to come together, for Angelenos to come together, for Angelenos to be ready to help each other. This is who we are.”
Her positive pabulum came too late to stop critics from casting her as a modern-day Nero, perhaps an emperor as Rome burns.
The attacks came from conservatives like Elon Musk, who called her “totally incompetent” on social media. They come from progressives and pointed out that her latest city budget calls for increasing police department spending while cutting fire department spending.
They came from the political center via Republican-turned-Democrat billionaire developer Rick Caruso. Caruso is the man Bass lost in the 2022 mayoral race and whose daughter lost her home in the Palisades fire. The attack also came from a CNN anchor who repeatedly questioned Los Angeles City Council President Marquise Harris Dawson on the wisdom of his longtime ally leaving the city during the fires.
The city of Los Angeles is scared, shaken, and looking for a scapegoat. No one seems better than a mayor who jets off to another continent, despite forecasters’ warnings that devastating winds are about to hit a region that hasn’t had rain for months. ?
Never mind that she inherited a city with creaky infrastructure, high budget deficits, and where voters wanted her to address homelessness and crime more than fire mitigation. Or that few doubted her trip to Ghana when she left on Saturday before the wind warning turned completely dire. A 20-year political career in Sacramento, the Capitol and City Hall, and decades of community work in South Los Angeles before that, are in danger of disappearing.
Accountability is essential, and many questions will be asked of city, county, state, and federal officials once the fires subside, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. When a disaster strikes, the person at the top, whether it’s a mayor, governor, or president, is usually the first to take the blame, whether fair or not. Bass should know better than anyone that it’s never okay for an elected official to ignore a reporter, no matter how rude or inappropriate the question may be.
But it’s Pendejo’s job to play the blame game in a city like Los Angeles that is constantly on the brink of destruction. Because if you’re going to blame Bass for this once-in-a-lifetime disaster, you might as well do the same for everyone else.
Firefighters battle the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
Blame the residents who chose to live in areas where hell awaited them.
Blame the people who continued to live their lives while the hills of LA sparkled and the city’s greenery withered.
Let’s blame the fire authorities who knew this day was coming and should have already sent firefighters instead of sending them in after the fact. Because it is inevitable that hell will erupt.
Blame Angelenos for using too much water when every drop is needed to put out the embers from Malibu to Hollywood to the foothills, even though the house isn’t on fire.
Blame President-elect Donald Trump for blaming Governor Gavin “Newscam” on social media for the fires.
Blame Caruso for being Los Angeles’ biggest political loser since former Mayor Sam Yorty. Caruso has spent much of this week’s anguish blaming buses to any media outlet that will allow him to do so, while hiring a private fire brigade to protect the Pacific Palisades shopping plaza.
Above all, let’s collectively blame ourselves. We’ve known for a long time that paradise can disappear in an instant, and when it does, we often act surprised. Fool us once, shame on you. You fooled us twice, shame on you.
Do you see how stupid the blame game is? It will never stop and will only distract you at the worst possible moment: now.
Mr. Bass’ remarks at the press conference were not exactly exalted, but they were correct. Unity and mutual aid are messages the city should heed and not throw stones at the easiest targets while she and all of us still have work to do.
Bass, who once chaired the Congressional Subcommittee on Africa, should not have gone to Ghana, or the moment the National Weather Service ratcheted up its forecast and announced a breakthrough storm was coming. It’s easy to look back and think you should have returned home. But will the buses never leave the city limits because disaster could happen again at any moment? Should the L.A. mayor act as if this megacity is Mayberry, with no need to foster foreign relations?
That’s an unrealistic standard, but one that Bass will have to answer for the rest of his time at City Hall.
The mayor’s biggest miscalculation was assuming that the public would give her the same reprieve as other elected officials. At a press conference Wednesday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Berger, whose district includes Pasadena and Altadena, said she had been in constant contact with Bass from the moment the fire broke out, calling her ” A true leader.”
Bass vastly underestimated the public’s demand for leaders to be on the front lines rather than answering the phones. And that could prove politically fatal.
I wouldn’t be surprised if West Side residents who lost everything tried to recall their allegedly derelict mayor. And you know that when she runs for re-election, her opponents will include photos of her trip to Africa in their campaign materials.
Mr. Bass won his campaign two years ago in part by boasting that his state’s connections with the federal government would help L.A. leverage money and resources. It’s the only thing that can protect her career and reputation as the city seeks help on the long road to recovery.
She doesn’t deserve to be tainted by Nero, but she needs to step up. What Bass does from this point forward is how history will judge her. Not based on where she was when there was no fear of fire, when everyone was hoping things wouldn’t get so bad and foolishly believing everything would be fine.
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