Richard Perle biographer Alan Weisman says Perle is back to puppet-mastering the Middle East, looking for the next Ahmed Chalabi:

Perle, of course, was the most prominent and aggressive advocate of Chalabi, dubbed the "Jay Gatsby of Iraq" for his social life and financial scandals, as the leader of a new Iraq. That effort collapsed when the Iraqi people, finally given a chance to vote in January 2005, did not award Chalabi's party a single seat in the new parliament.

Perle insists that his man, who has a new job with the Baghdad government, was the victim of a smear campaign led by the State Department and the CIA. The Chalabi experience has not muted Perle's unabashed affection for dissidents. "I think the best way to bring about regime change," he told me, "is to help decent people who are powerless without outside help."

State Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) explains how easy fixes got California into a budget mess. And Angelo Rivero Santos, deputy chief of mission of the Venezuelan Embassy, says that those who oppose upcoming reforms are opposing democratic change.

One of those opponents happens to be the editorial board, which says Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez wants a government like Cuba's, and may get it. The board is optimistic about the Annapolis Middle East summit, which seems to have surpassed (admittedly low) expectations. And the board isn't surprised that law enforcement agencies can't enforce Jessica's Law, a wishful-thinking ballot initiative passed last fall.

Readers discuss a Times analysis of Mitt Romney. Irvine's Jean Anne Turner writes, "The article characterizes Romney and his family as a throwback to another era without acknowledging how successfully they are managing to live family values in these turbulent times.... [H]e deserves better than Mitt-picking."