Charlie Beck, chief-designate of the Los Angeles Police Department, visited with reporters, editors and members of The Times' editorial board Wednesday, the day after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his nomination of Beck as the next LAPD chief. In some areas, Beck distinguished himself (though cordially so) from former Chief William J. Bratton, pointing out that his method of effecting change by focusing on rank-and-file officers differs from his predecessor's emphasis on establishing policy and working with political leaders. Beck expressed support for greater transparency in police oversight (the subject of a Times editorial Saturday*) and Special Order 40, the department mandate that prevents officers from initiating police action for the purpose of determining someone's immigration status.*

Below are audio clips of the session; I've included notable quotes by Beck on each topic. Segments two through eight begin, in order, with questions posed by Times staff members Jim Newton, Patt Morrison, Nick Goldberg, Marjorie Miller, Joel Rubin, David Lauter, Eddy Hartenstein and Newton. The first clip doesn't begin with a question.

LAPD reform, from the ground up

"You'll think of me as more of a cop's chief rather than a leader-manager with vision."

"I have a similar vision to his, but my character's different. I think I'm a better-suited leader to drive the changes down."

Federal consent decree

"All of the issues that the consent decree was created to address, I agree with, and those will continue. Now, some of the mechanics have become ill-suited because either we've reached universal compliance on them, but that doesn't necessarily declare victory on the issue. There are other ways to do this monitoring that is smart."

Transparency in police oversight

"My core belief is that when you become a police officer -- and you're entrusted with life, liberty and life and death of people in the community -- that you give up some right to anonymity that most other people enjoy. Unfortunately, state law doesn't agree with me on that."

Relationship with the Police Protective League

"I think the union is a huge ally. I think that a manager that ignores the authority and power of a union, such as some of ours have done in the past, ignores a huge opportunity to mold his workforce. So the union is very important. Do I think we're going to agree on all issues? No."

Immigration and drug enforcement

"I believe in Special Order 40. I believe in not just the words on paper, but the spirit of Special Order 40. I think that especially in Los Angeles, that we have to represent everybody, that everybody has the right to quality police service, regardless of status. I don't think that we should be an arm of the federal government in enforcing immigration laws specifically. However, if we make a legal arrest on another charge, and a criminal is monitored by Immigration, then they should have access to him."

LAPD size

"I think we are a police department that the majority of residents in Los Angeles feels comfortable with, and that's largely due to the increase in size."

"At 10,000 [officers], we can start to address core issues, because you are able to provide that basic level of service and add on the problem-solving piece. So I think that size that we're at right now should be looked at as a floor, the basement."

Beck's leadership team

"The team that got us here in the first place is still here. Nobody is being thrown out; nobody has told me that they're leaving. I intend to use the players that we have."

Work outside Los Angeles

"I'm going to go out a lot more than I would have if Bill Bratton had never been here, but I certainly won't travel as much as he did. This is my home, this is where my family is, this is where all my avocations are, all the things I like to do, so I'm going to be -- I'm a local boy, always have been. So that's the way I'll be as a chief."

Lessons learned from predecessors

"If I ever become a detriment to this police department because of my personality, because of something I did, then I'm gone."

"It's more important that the Los Angeles Police Department and the city of Los Angeles do well than it is that Charlie Beck does well. So I think that is the key lesson."

-- Paul Thornton

*Update: The Times' editorial on transparency in the LAPD is now online; click here to read it.

*Update 2: A retired LAPD captain kindly wrote to inform me that my previous summary of Special Order 40 -- "the department mandate that prevents officers from obtaining the immigration status of detained suspects" -- was incorrect.

Photo: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief-designate Charlie Beck. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

An ounce of enforcement is worth a pound of new laws. Or something to that effect. The editorial board points out today that Los Angeles could more effectively limit the proliferation of marijuana clinics by enforcing existing state law against for-profit operations than by dithering over municipal restrictions.

The board mourns the deaths of more than 100 men, women and children in a Pakistani car-bombing, saying that such terrible events should convince Pakistanis that the fight against violent Islamic extremism is their fight too:

More than anything [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton can say, a series of assaults that have taken the lives of more than 500 civilians this year should serve to convince typical Pakistanis that this is not just a U.S. war. The United States and Pakistan have a common enemy in Islamist extremists, and the Pakistani state is fighting for its survival.

And the board urges President Obama to stand by his deadline for closing Guantanamo:

The legal axiom that "justice delayed is justice denied" applies with special force to Guantanamo. Whether they are dangerous terrorists or, like many of those already released, bystanders caught up in a post- 9/11 dragnet, these detainees have languished for years without adequate due process.

On the other side of the fold, a consultant to a documentary on convicted murderer Leo Frank writes about his 1915 lynching in Georgia. The subsequent campaigns either to vilify him or clear his name echo today, with haves and have-nots viewing the same events from markedly different perspectives.

And the battle continues over the Human Rights Watch reports earlier this year on the Middle East. Robert Bernstein, who helped found the organization, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times slamming the group's Middle East division for what he called bias against Israel. Today, a Middle East reporter for Time magazine hits back at Bernstein on our op-ed page:

Bernstein is just plain wrong that the organization's Middle East program focuses on Israel's alleged human rights violations while ignoring those committed by Arab governments and the Iranian regime. Even a quick glance at Human Rights Watch's website, where recent reports are posted, shows that the majority of those on the Middle East relate to countries other than Israel. According to Human Rights Watch, it has produced 1,776 total documents on the Middle East since 2000 -- 250, or 14%, of which were devoted to Israel.

--Karin Klein

Photo of the aftermath of the Pakistan bombing, Credit: Arshad Arbab / EPA

 

 

 

 

 

Columnist Jonah Goldberg foresees clouds ahead for the Democrats -- in fact, a coming storm so severe that it could end Democratic control of Congress. It's building from the Tea Party movement, which Goldberg sees as an heir to the Ross Perot third-party movement of the 1990s. "If the GOP can convincingly align with and exploit the growing Perotista discontent, it very well might ride to victory on a tsunami the Democrats can't even see."

Also on today's Op-Ed page, scholar Giles Dorronsoro explains why U.S. attempts to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan's Pashtun areas in the south and east are probably doomed to fail. And ACLU National Security Project chief Jameel Jaffer decries an attempt by Congress to circumvent the courts by giving the secretary of Defense the power to withhold photographs of combatants "engaged, captured or detained" by the U.S. during the Bush administration.

On the Editorial page, The Times weighs in on Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's policy change on medical marijuana. Though we're happy that federal prosecutors will make marijuana cases a low priority in states like California that have passed laws approving its medicinal use, we think that's the wrong approach. The administration shouldn't be picking and choosing states in which to enforce federal law -- rather, it should de-emphasize medical marijuana cases in all 50.

We also note that the best place for local health departments to conduct swine flu vaccinations is at public schools -- yet that's not where the inoculations will take place in Los Angeles, thanks to a failure by the school district and the county to properly coordinate.

And we muse on the bizarre spectacle presented by Colorado's Heene family, accused of perpetrating the "balloon boy" hoax in an attempt to drum up publicity for a reality show. "As much as some people will do just about anything for a Hollywood contract, a good number of the rest will lap up the juicy story of their wrongdoing. In reality, perhaps we all get what we wanted."

Illustration by Jonathan Twingley / For The Times

If you've been wondering how Laura Ling and Euna Lee wound up prisoners of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, read the pair's Op-Ed today and find out. In addition to providing chilling details about their capture (sounds to me like they were set up, but judge for yourself), they also explain why they were so determined to report on human trafficking between North Korea and China:

It's a compelling piece. Rounding out the page, columnist Tim Rutten provides a history lesson about the observatory on Mt. Wilson that's now threatened by the rampaging Station fire, as well as some harsh words about the policies that have seemingly turned Southern California into a tinderbox.

On the editorial side of the stack, the Times board says it's too early to abandon comprehensive healthcare reform for a more incremental, less controversial approach. Besides, the board says, "piecemeal efforts ... quickly run into the same complexities" that a sweeping overhaul faces, such as the need for expensive subsidies. The board also endorses moves by Latin American countries to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and other drugs, while also praising the Obama administration for taking a "wait-and-see approach" to the changes.

Photo: Laura Ling, left, and Euna Lee. Credit: Gabriel Bouys / AFP/Getty Images

-- Jon Healey

So is the takeout message here that the doctor is merely a victim of the patient?

It's a question that begs to be asked after Times reporters broke the story that Michael Jackson died of "lethal levels" of propofol (the least-secret secret of our times), apparently administered by his personal physician Conrad Murray. Murray told authorities that he had been trying to wean Jackson off the powerful and dangerous anesthetic, but that after a sleepless night in which several other possible sleep-inducers were used, the pop star repeatedly demanded propofol. And so the doctor gave it to him.

They say the customer is always right, but this might be taking it to an extreme. Of course, displeasing the star might have lost Murray a very cushy gig -- reportedly $150,000 a month. And Jackson doesn't sound like the easiest of patients, at least according to Murray's account. But there are times a person has to say no. Of course, a superstar isn't likely to surround himself with those kind of people.

--Karin Klein

Photo: Joshua Gates Weisberg / EPA

It's easy to make fun of cranky senior citizens and town-meeting hooligans who seem to believe that Medicare isn't a government program. President Obama joined in the fun at an AARP event last month:

I got a letter the other day from a woman. She said, "I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare." I  wanted to say, you know, that's what Medicare is: a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with.

I would rather face a death panel than ally myself with the naysayers on health-care reform. But there is a method in the madness of the "Medicare isn't a government plan" argument. Medicare may be run by the government (through the Health Care Financing Administration), but it is funded, as is Social Security, by payroll taxes. 

Like Social Security, Medicare is viewed by its beneficiaries as "getting my own money back." It's a fallacy, of course; there is no "lockbox." But this view partakes of the Calvinist view that there are deserving and undeserving recipients of government payments, the "deserving poor" and the welfare bums.

In the health-care context, "government program" means not only that the government funds and operates health care, but that it dispenses benefits to the unmotivated and the lazy. Cue another town-hall theme: that health-care reform designed to cover the uninsured will result in scrimping on Medicare. So the naysayers may be wrong, but they aren't incoherent.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

-- Michael McGough

Bet you thought that the business of your publicly elected California Legislature was, well, public, since your public dollars pay these public servants to make public decisions in the public's Capitol building. Is there a theme in that sentence? There ought to be, especially with the editorial board today bemoaning the Assembly's decision to expunge the record of the individual votes of its members on whether or not to allow drilling off the Santa Barbara coast. In other words, you can't find out how your own Assembly member voted.

Assembly members sometimes complain, privately, that their constituents just don't understand how difficult it is to make laws and balance a budget. But making the very public process of lawmaking into a secret ritual doesn't help matters. On the contrary, it makes Californians feel like they are part of the stuff being fed into the meat grinder.

The board also weighs in on the latest maneuvers to stop a worthy bill that would extend hate-crime laws to cover crimes against gays and lesbians. Since conservative lawmakers in Washington D.C. weren't getting anywhere with the specious argument that halting hate crimes against people because of their sexual orientation would somehow impinge on the perpetrators' freedom of speech and religion, they've come up with a new tactic: making certain hate crimes a capital offense, thus changing the congressional conversation from one about equal rights to one about the death penalty.

And though the people of Afghanistan have a million good reasons to mistrust the election process, the editorial board notes the importance of holding new presidential elections and giving voters hope that they can, at least eventually, have an impact on changing the government that has turned out a disappointment to many of them.

On the other side of the fold, Tim Rutten reprimands Police Chief William Bratton for the timing of his departure from Los Angeles and some of the dealings that took place beforehand:

...The manner and timing of Bratton's departure is almost breathtakingly irresponsible. It also raises troubling questions about his relationship with Michael Cherkasky, the court-appointed monitor who evaluated the LAPD's compliance with the federal consent decree, and about Cherkasky's role in convincing the federal judge to terminate oversight of the department.

And a professor in Mexico calls on President Obama to do more than praise Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his courage in the war on drugs; he must also remind Calderon that the human-rights abuses that his army is accused of in that war are unacceptable.

Photo: Philip Scott Andrews / AP

 

It's all about budgets and spending programs today on the Times Opinion pages. Well, OK, there are pieces on North Korea and Gitmo, too, but work with me here.

The editorial board blasts Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for using his line-item veto power to make deeper cuts than the legislature enacted in its hard-fought budget revision -- a power grab that probably violates the state's constitution:

California vests lawmaking power in the Legislature and properly limits the executive by allowing him to veto appropriations, line-by-line if he likes, but not to unilaterally alter those already on the books.

The board also calls on Congress to put more money into the Kash4Klunkers CARS program that subsidizes the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles, despite the grumbling from some economists, because it's providing a much-needed boost to consumer confidence. But the money should come out of the unspent portion of the $787 billion stimulus package enacted in February, and there should be no more refills, the board says.

On the Op-Ed page ...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got his newsweek cover, his Los Angeles Magazine cover and a few others in between -- so now it's the City Council's turn. The full council is featured on the August cover of LAJEMM, the Los Angeles Journal for Education on Medical Marijuana.

I heard several reports yesterday of this very impressive-looking, full-color, glossy-covered 14 x 10 magazine being distributed in stacks around town. As of this posting, the July issue is still highlighted at the Web site, and it has an inset of the council. But holy smokes -- the August cover makes the council members look like poster children for medical marijuana.

Or maybe that should be "medical marijuana" (with quotes), because while some of the full-page ads in the 208-page book emphasize health and healing, many don't bother with the medical niceties and instead discuss their "quality strains," "clones," "friendly staff," etc.

It's an interesting addition to the discussion over whether and how cities should regulate medical marijuana dispensaries. Here's the Times' recent editorial encouraging the council to move forward with regulations, but there is obviously a lot more to be considered: Can or should the city regulate advertising? Can or should the city take any role in verifying the medical use of marijuana? Did Californians, in adopting Proposition 215 in 1996, really intend to roll back all restrictions against recreational marijuana use? Or did they mean, as the ballot measure said, to protect people from prosecution only for medical use of the plant?

And, did the City Council members know they were posing for a magazine cover?

Whatever its other consequences, I hope the "beer summit" involving President Obama, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley makes a dent in the the priggish neo-Prohibitionism that regards a sip of Miller Lite as a form of substance abuse.

Over-consumption of alcohol is bad, and for many alcohol is addictive. But roughly since the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1980, a sort of anti-alcohol zealotry has crept into the culture.

In Pennsylvania, where I wrote many editorials in favor of privatizing the state liquor stores, neo-Prohibitionists, many of them politically liberal, were part of an unholy anti-reform alliance that also included organized labor (fearful that state liquor-store clerks would lose their jobs), teetotalers from Pennsylvania's Bible Belt and ministers from Philadelphia who believe, wrongly, that state control of liquor sales keeps young men in their communities out of mischief.

The most conspicuous casualty of Alcoholic Correctness has been a rational debate over the drinking age. When a group of college presidents broached the possibility of an 18-year-old drinking age, they were savaged by critics -- including MADD, which accused them of waving the white flag in the battle against binge drinking on campus.

Actually, the presidents' point was that an unrealistically low drinking age might actually encourage binge drinking.

Intuitively, this seems right to me, but it's been a long time since I was a college student in the 1970s. When I became the editor of the student newspaper, I inherited the practice of holding a kegger in the newspaper's office to introduce potential reporters to our rag. We advertised the event in the paper, never worrying that a "townie" in a blue uniform would see it and bust us. One of the resident advisers in my freshman dorm advised us that we weren't likely to be arrested for possession unless we took the beer bottles into the street.

Were there binge drinkers at my college? Sure, including me one night, but I didn't have a car and the hangover sobered me in more ways than one. Maybe a new look at the drinking age will require that a cop in Cambridge arrest a Harvard student for having a beer on his porch.

Photo: Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg