This is Los Angeles, California. Even when the politicians are atrocious crooks, you seldom hear media figures regret their endorsement of said individuals. Well, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of The Los Angeles Times, went there: he admitted that his paper’s endorsement of Karen Bass was an error.
“We endorsed Karen Bass. I think right now, that's a mistake. And we admit that,” he said on Mark Halperin’s 2Way show. He even went further, though he added nothing too revolutionary. He said that perhaps we need to look better at those running for office regarding competence and if they’ve ever run things.
NEW: LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong says it was a mistake for his paper to endorse Karen Bass, says competent people should be elected, not professional politicians.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 13, 2025
While I'm glad people are waking up, this is not some profound concept.
"We endorsed Karen Bass. I… pic.twitter.com/YLHTvhjqDP
You only get this type of political apathy under a system with virtual one-party rule. Bass only got the job because she was a black Democrat.
Wildfires have been raging in Los Angeles County for days. It’s burned through over 40,000 acres, destroyed Pacific Palisades and Malibu, and killed at least 24 people, though the death toll is expected to rise. These fires might become the costliest natural disaster in US history, and Bass’ political career might have been incinerated in them. Even with her role as mayor being mostly ceremonial, the who’s who in the area’s political scene noted that Bass has put on a show on what not to do.
It also doesn’t help that her office has been busted burying memos from the Los Angeles Fire Department, who warned they needed more manpower, that cutting some $17 million from the department, which happened months ago, would be detrimental to emergency response, and her broken promise of never going abroad during her tenure as mayor. Bass was in Ghana when the fires broke out.
She looks out of her depth, but the liberal media and the Democrats will say she’s receiving undue criticism for being a woman and a person of color. No, she sucks at her job, along with the rest of the California political establishment, and this incompetence has led to people losing their homes, livelihoods, and in some cases, their lives because of it.