India or bust is a bust for Garcetti
Well, it looks like we will have Los Angeles
Mayor Eric Garcetti to kick around a little longer.
By hitching his wagon to Joe Biden during the early days of the 2020 campaign, back when Kamala Harris was still calling Joe a racist and the odds of Biden winning anything made Rich Strike’s 80-1 shot at the Kentucky Derby look like a shoo-in, Los Angeles’ “back to basics” mayor was in line for a plum reward after Joe trumped Trump.
But then the wheels in Washington started to whirl and the mayor of America’s second largest city got skunked for Secretary of Transportation in favor of the former-mayor of America’s 304th largest city, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, whose mass transit system consists of a Notre Dame shuttle van and Buttigieg’s skateboard. Still, a political debt is a political debt and Joe had to come up with something for Garcetti.
And now, more than a year after the India post was offered, Eric Garcetti is still mayor of
Los Angeles, which must come as big a shock to the people of L.A. as it is to Garcetti.
Garcetti’s magic carpet ride to New Delhi has been hijacked by that paragon of Women’s Rights, the ancient Senator from Iowa, Charles Grassley, who has been in office so long he makes Diane Feinstein look like Billie Eillish. Senator Grassley put a hold on Garcetti’s nomination after somebody told him he could embarrass President Biden by poking around Garcetti’s Rick Jacobs problem, not that Biden needs any help when it comes to embarrassment.
Rick Jacobs was one of Eric Garcetti’s closest advisors. If you look on page 365 of your “Politician to English Dictionary” you’ll see that “advisor” means “campaign cash bundler.” It was apparently an open secret Jacobs was touchy-feely with underlings which is a no-no in the #MeToo era, even though it was alleged unwanted sexual advances directed at men, specifically, LAPD officer Matthew Garza, that first pushed Jacobs’ name into the news.
The Democrats tried to minimize the mayor’s Jacobs problem during his long-delayed confirmation hearing, with New Hampshire Sen. Jean Shaheen all but apologizing to Garcetti for even bringing.
Last week, the Iowa Senator issued a 31-page report that says Eric Garcetti either “knew or should have known” one of his top advisors was a sexual harasser and unwanted hugger, this despite the mayor’s denials during his confirmation testimony. Now it looks like the closest Garcetti will ever get to India is his Saturday hot yoga class in Larchmont. If you have detected a somewhat mocking tone to this column, you are correct. Despite Grassley’s sanctimonious tisk-tisking about the evils of inappropriate hugging and kissing at Los Angeles City Hall, the senator only cares about handing another defeat to Biden. But the Ambassadorship to India is more important that the usual Washington games.
Grassley has succeeded in stopping Garcetti thus far because he seized on an issue impossible for Democrats to brush aside.
For 20 years Eric Garcetti has been at the center of power in a city notorious for corruption, where pay-to-play is the court of first resort, and 20% of the city council has either gone to jail or awaits trial. Mayor Garcetti continues to deny all allegations and maybe his nomination will slip through, still, the damage has been done. If confirmed, America’s top diplomat to India will bring with him more baggage than simply his socks and underwear.
India is not a diplomatic backwater. It’s the second most populous nation on earth, the world’s largest democracy, and a nuclear power to boot. India is still playing footsie with Vladimir Putin and was one of only a handful of countries that has not condemned Russia’s criminal war in Ukraine. The United States needs a competent and scandalfree Ambassador to India.
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