Jim.Sweeney: September 2009 Archives

Have you heard gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's latest explanation of why she didn't registered to vote until 2002 and then proceeded to skip most of the subsequent election? Sonny Bono didn't vote either.

Nope, that's bad enough, but there's a new one. "I was focused on raising a family, on my husband's career, and we moved many, many times," Whitman told reporters Tuesday in Davis.

Give me a break. That's the lamest excuse I've heard in almost 25 years from a candidate who didn't bother to vote.

So who outdid Whitman?

Meet Tony Hope, son of Bob, who ran for the House in 1986. A former Ford administration official and a partner in a Big Five accounting firm, he returned to Los Angeles to run for office, and he looked like a good bet to win. He had name i.d., raised plenty of money, knew politics and business, and he was an affable guy who clicked with voters. Well, he clicked with them until he explained that he failed to vote (or even register) because Republicans weren't allowed to register in Washington, D.C.

Tony insisted that registration cards marked Republican were simply discarded. Yet his wife managed to register. So did thousands of other Republicans, though D.C. elections were (and still are) one-sided affairs dominated by Democrats. That's probably why he didn't register. Well, his soft-shoe routine wasn't as popular as his father's, and he lost big in the primary to Elton Gallegly, who still holds the House seat today.

To his everlasting credit, Tony didn't take the news reports about his voting record too personally. In fact, he called me a couple days after the election and suggested that I drive by his house. There was a for sale sign in the front yard. Tony moved back to Washington and later served as chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission during the first Bush administration.

Whitman may overcome her failure to vote. It helps to get that kind of news out early, and the primary is still eight months away. But you can bank on seeing TV ads like the ones that helped sink Democrat Al Checchi, an airline mogul, whose spotty voting record came up during the 1998 gubernatorial campaign: "Al Checchi didn't care enough for vote the last time we elected a governor. Now he wants to be governor?"

-- Jim Sweeney

Here's a Roman Polanski headline from the Huffington Post that's typical of several others this week: France and Poland want him out.

Perhaps we've got a potential solution here. Maybe we can send all of our convicted pedophiles to France and Poland. None of us want them in our neighborhoods

Yet something tells me that most residents of France and Poland aren't interested in having a convicted pedophile as a neighbor, either - even if he has an Oscar to go with his rap sheet. Just my intuition? Not entirely (though it's almost certainly right). After a couple days of news reports long on celebrities and politicians defending Polanski and denouncing Los Angeles prosecutors for trying to extradite him, the New York Times is reporting a backlash from other French officials, who apparently hew to the advice of another Hollywood (alleged) miscreant: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

This crime wasn't pretty. Polanski was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. He made a plea bargain for a lesser charge of having unlawful sex with a minor, then skipped the country before sentencing.

Polanski's case against extradition boils down to his victim forgave him (after a civil settlement, the details of which were not made public) and a publicity-hungry judge was going to reject a plea bargain and send him to prison.

He's hardly the first defendant to suspect a judge of bias. Maybe he's right. It's not unprecedented. Well, we've got a great system to pursue that issue: the appeals courts. And they aren't averse to siding with defendants who have been wronged in trial courts. But, so sorry, you don't get to argue your case from a Swiss chalet or the Left Bank. And even the most feckless president isn't likely to pardon a convicted pedophile ...

Maybe Polanski just convinced himself that real life was reflected in these lines from "Chinatown:"

Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there?

Jake Gittes: Working for the district attorney.

Mulwray: Doing what?

Gittes: As little as possible.

Mulwray: The district attorney gives his men advice like that?

Gittes: They do in Chinatown.  

-- Jim Sweeney

Well, if the price is right, you can own a state office building.

That's right, a warren of bureaucrats that you call your own.

Altogether, the state is looking to sell 11 office buildings, including the Joseph Rattigan State Building in downtown Santa Rosa.

Desperate for cash, the plan is to sell the buildings now and lease them back for about years. The goal is to raise $2 billion.

As the Sacramento Bee pointed out on Friday, it's a reversal of the policy established in the early '90s by Gov. Pete Wilson, who wanted to put state offices in state-owned buildings to save on rent payments. But that's going the way of extreme makeover.

With an estimated market value of $7.8 million, the four-story, 61,000-square foot Santa Rosa building is far and away the least expensive offering. If you want to get a look before the multiple-listing tour, it's on D Street near Sonoma Avenue and has the large, angled windows on the upper floors and a large atrium inside. Current tenants include the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the Board of Equalization and several legislators.

No word if naming rights come with the deal.

The governor's garage sale went well, and buyers flocked to this week's sale of revenue-anticipation notes. But with all the empty office space around the state, I wonder how many investors have the cash for this deal ...

-- Jim Sweeney

Several major banks are backing off overdraft policies that result in hefty fees for customers who go a few dollars over their balances in debit transactions.

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase all announced new policies on Tuesday. Public complaints about the fees have been mounting, Congress is considering new rules and newspapers, including The Press Democrat, have published editorials criticizing the avaricious policies. Click here to read ours.

(For the record, I claim no parallel between our editorial and the new policies.)

Wells Fargo says it won't assess fees on overdrafts of $5 or less. The bank also said it will allow customers to opt out of overdraft coverage, which many banks grant automatically. The announcement came a day after B of A said it wouldn't assess fees on overdrafts of less than $10. Both B of A and Chase say they will require customers to opt into overdraft coverage. Even existing customers will have to opt in at Chase.

The fees, which can run $35 for each transaction, are expected to generate $38.5 billion in revenue for banks this year, and consumer groups say banks are likely to adopt new fees or possibly drop free checking programs to make up the lost revenue.

What was the old auto repair slogan? You can pay me now ... or pay me later.

- Jim Sweeney

President Obama's policy choices on Afghanistan aren't getting any easier.

Consider these news items:

-- From the Washington Post: "The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict 'will likely result in failure,' according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by the Washington Post."

The memo identifies three main insurgency groups, at least two of which have ties to al-Qaida.

-- From the Los Angeles Times: "Federal authorities have tied as many as a dozen people to a suspected al-Qaida-linked bomb plot on U.S. soil, and are urgently trying to gather evidence to indict the young Afghan immigrant at the center of that case on terrorism charges, law enforcement officials said Monday."

The war in Afghanistan has been about neutralizing al-Qaida from the start. During his campaign, Obama emphasized the need to focus on Afghanistan and al-Qaida, a theme we've echoed in editorials for several years.

Pressure is mounting on Obama to scale back U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. By most measures, the war is going badly - casualties are climbing, insurgent groups are increasing in strength and influence, the Afghan government is corrupt and the recent election appeared to be fixed. Polls show most Americans are losing patience, some of our NATO allies are talking about pulling out and even some leading conservatives are advocating withdrawal.

Now comes the reminder that al-Qaida is still stalking U.S. targets.

Law enforcement appears to have gotten ahead of the terrorists this time. But in making his choice, Obama must weigh the risk to domestic security along with the embarrassment of letting Osama bin-Laden get away with the 9/11 attacks.

I'm not yet ready to give up the hunt. But that's easy for me to say from 7,000 miles away and long past the age where I could enlist ...

What do you think?

- Jim Sweeney

Meet Cheronda Guyton, a Wells Fargo senior vice president, make that ex-senior vice president, who spectacularly failed Having a Clue 101.

Guyton, who was responsible for commercial foreclosed properties, apparently moved into to a bank-owned home in the exclusive Malibu Colony, a gate oceanside neighborhood whose residents include actor Tom Hanks and other high-rollers. The former owners, according to a Los Angeles Times report over the weekend, lost a bundle to swindler Bernie Madoff and gave up the home to settle bank debts.

Neighbors complained that a Wells Fargo executive appeared to be living in the house and using it for lavish parties, including one where guests arrived by yacht. Real estate agents told the newspaper that the bank wouldn't allow them to show the house to potential buyers.

Reporters tracked a car parked at the house to Guyton. When they went to the door, a woman answered (on an intercom, naturally) and had nothing to say.

At first, Wells Fargo didn't have much to say either. But by Monday, the bank confirmed that Guyton had been fired. Perhaps Wells Fargo's management got a clue after planning a junket to a pricey Las Vegas casino shortly after collecting $25 billion (following a $2.3 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008).

Here's a link to the original story in the L.A. Times.

And, for grins, here's a photo gallery of the beach house courtesy of a Malibu real estate agent.

-- Jim Sweeney

I usually leave sports commentary to my able colleagues from the sports section, but I can't resist after reading Lowell Cohn's lament this weekend about Cal eliminating its media guide.

My hat's off to Lowell because I was beginning to wonder if writers - and especially broadcasters - had stopped reading them. Why's that? I keep hearing about "former" first-round draft choices and former MVPs.

Just how do you become a former first-round draft choice? I suppose if Michael Crabtree doesn't sign with the 49ers and gets picked by someone else in the fourth round next year that would do it. Otherwise, I've just assumed broadcasters and writers were too lazy to look it up and say someone was a first-round pick in 2004 or MVP in 1999.

Then again, by the prevailing logic, perhaps Rickey Henderson and Joe Montana are former hall-of-famers. Induction day has passed after all.

- Jim Sweeney

It wasn't a great surprise when Washington Post columnist George F. Will followed up his call to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan with a column saying it's time to get out of Iraq, too.

It will, however, be a surprise if Will (or Ann Coulter or Charles Krauthammer or any of the thundering voices of the right) say that perhaps, just perhaps, those who opposed the war in Iraq to begin with (or the one in Vietnam for that matter) weren't un-American, advocated of cut-and-run or somehow disrespectful of the troops deployed to the war zones.

Will might enhance the credibility of his new view by offering some insight on how it evolved from his Feb. 10, 2003 column, which started thusly: "In estimating the potential impact of Colin Powell's U.N. presentation on persons bent on believing there is no justification for a military response to Iraq's behavior, remember the human capacity for the willful suspension of disbelief."

Full disclosure: I opposed the war in Iraq from the start. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. And so are the leaders of Iran, Somalia, Syria and a long list of other countries that I'm not interested in invading. But there were no WMDs, and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Afghanistan was another matter, and I'm not persuaded that we should give up there, certainly not before giving Gen. Stanley McChrystal, an expert on counterinsurgencies, a chance to fully assess the situation and make his case to Washington.

Maybe it's interesting to see a prominent conservative voice express a contrarian view on the war; I suppose it's big news in Washington salons. As for me, I'll check my thesaurus for a really big word for ho-hum.

- Jim Sweeney

You've been comatose for three months if you don't know that Congress (and by extension the country) is fighting about whether to include a public option as part of a health insurance overhaul plan.

However, you may not know about the paradoxical fight in Sacramento over worker's compensation insurance.

You see, for 95 years, the State Compensation Insurance Fund, or SCIF, has sold insurance to cover medical and disability costs for workers injured on the job. It's required by the state Constitution - and has 23 percent of California's market share, a figure that private insurers must envy. It's especially popular with small businesses, which have trouble affording the higher rates charged by private worker's compensation insurers. When premiums skyrocketed about 10 years ago, the state fund's market share jumped to almost 60 percent.

Let's call it, ahem, the public option.

Well, as they staggered under an enormous deficit this summer, Democratic legislators and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to sell off some of the the nonprofit agency's lucrative business, predicting that they could raise $1 billion by spinning it off to the private sector. The bill to get the state out of the insurance business passed over almost unanimous Republican opposition.

But before the fund and its 6,200 employees could be posted on eBay or displayed at the governor's garage sale, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican who is running for governor, filed a lawsuit to halt the sale.

In doing so, he turned the argument of Washington Republicans (that a government program shouldn't compete with the private sector) on its head: "This $1 billion sale of SCIF assets could not only endanger the solvency of SCIF, but is a direct affront to the state's jobs and business climate."

Most likely, Poizner is right that it would be a mistake for the state to scale back or get out of the worker's compensation insurance business. Several other states have tried and run into legal obstacles. But who would have guessed that Republicans would argue that California's business climate was safeguarded by ... the public option.

- Jim Sweeney