I was wondering what George Washington would think if he climbed from his grave and inspected America on its 230^th birthday. Would he be more disappointed by the low-grade attacks on President Bush and the federal government or more surprised that the government he helped found has lasted this long? Or would he just yawn? Criticism of the government is older than prostitution, you know. In Mr. Washington’s day, criticism was just as vicious, just as vulgar as the anti-American arm of the Democratic Party is today. Left wing Democrats, such as the ACLU, National Public Radio, CNN, the Los Angeles Times and lately The New York Times, may not date back to the 1700s. But the coarse script they are using is wheezing. The script has more miles on it than my car. If liberals knew their history, the sloganeers would realize they are imitators not originators. Going into the holiday, the only comfort is that we have survived these kinds of internal attacks before.

The combination was lethal. It was comparable to standing in a telephone booth with 10 of your closest relatives who have cultivated an unhealthy proclivity for the grape. The crowd was not — how you say it? — stellar. The story, “Blacks Call on UCLA to Reform Admission Policy,” was reported 10 days ago in the Los Angeles Times by the journeyman reporter Stu Silverstein. He is not one of the Times’s trenchant correspondents. When the Times and its army of opinionated reporters — the affirmative action-types and the marginally talented white boys and girls — disagree with the premise of a story, a countering view is commonly included in the opening sentence. In this typically unbalanced Silverstein report, UCLA is accorded 2 sentences. The kernel of the story is that only 96 black students are among the 4700 scheduled to enroll at UCLA in September, the lowest number in more than 30 years. In an academic sense, the fact that only 2 percent of the incoming freshman class is black should be of no more significance than the fact that only 2 percent of freshmen had mothers born in Kansas on a rainy Monday. When the Times agrees with a premise, legitimation is scarcely of concern. Any person can make accusation.

The last two beleaguered property owners left standing on tiny Exposition Boulevard say that contrary to frequent assertions made by City Hall, the city has not, in fact, relocated any of their fellow business owners in the 8800 block. All 12 entrepreneurs on the Culver City side of Exposition have been ordered out by January, Marc Chiat and Patrick Vorgeack told thefrontpageonline.com yesterday. According to Mr. Chiat and Mr. Vorgeack, none of the owners on

knows his next address. None has received any of the publicly and privately pledged assistance from City Hall in finding a new site. “We can be out on the street for all the city cares,” said Mr. Chiat. ”The city obviously does not care what happens to us.” They charged redevelopment personnel with callous behavior, putting themselves out of reach when they didn’t want to talk, and giving evasive answers when they did dialogue. The last two Exposition survivors are, at the same time, “angry” and  “devastated” over their “impersonal” and “misleading” treatment by the city as City Hall clears land in anticipation of the building of a light rail station in some unknown year in the future. The rail station may or may not be built for a myriad of political and fiscal rewasons. Both men say their personal lives have been permanently disrupted ever since the Community Development Dept., the professional arm of the Redevelopment Agency, came into their businesses a little less than two years ago. They are not quite sure when or how it will end. They agree, sadly, just that they have lost.

knows his next address. None has received any of the publicly and privately pledged assistance from City Hall in finding a new site. “We can be out on the street for all the city cares,” said Mr. Chiat. ”The city obviously does not care what happens to us.” They charged redevelopment personnel with callous behavior, putting themselves out of reach when they didn’t want to talk, and giving evasive answers when they did dialogue. The last two Exposition survivors are, at the same time, “angry” and“devastated” over their “impersonal” and “misleading” treatment by the city as City Hall clears land in anticipation of the building of a light rail station in some unknown year in the future. The rail station may or may not be built for a myriad of political and fiscal rewasons. Both men say their personal lives have been permanently disrupted ever since the Community Development Dept., the professional arm of the Redevelopment Agency, came into their businesses a little less than two years ago. They are not quite sure when or how it will end. They agree, sadly, just that they have lost.

The worst and least surprising news of the morning was that Mayor (Mexico First, Last and Always) Wrong of Los Angeles and the unethical leadership of two teachers unions k-nocked heads yesterday while they were hurriedly staggering into bed with each other. He desperately needed their backing, and he cut a whisper-whisper deal to pull off the upset. The power-greedy mayor’s bid to become the unquestioned czar of the dilapidated Los Angeles public school system has moved from Odds Against to Much Likelier. This is a madam seizing control of the region’s houses of ill-repute, an apt analogy. Based on public disclosures to date, Mayor Wrong knows exactly as much about running schools as his corrupt cousin in thuggery, Cardinal Mahony, knows about morality. Acting out the earlier stages of his life, Mayor Wrong has turned his back to the audience, hunkered into a crouch and lowered his voice, as if he were refereeing a back-alley craps game among petty criminals. This is how slipperily he has conducted himself in the months since his landmark announcement.

Democrats Prefer a Cold Peace

In addition to voting on a new, possibly controversial, food distribution program at next Tuesday’s meeting, the School Board also needs to select a summer replacement for the retiring District Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey. To frame it Biblically, Dr. McGaughey has entered her final 40 days and 40 nights. To frame it Hollywood-ly, one month after the latest Superman film debuts, Culver City’s Super will don her own cape and fly away. The Super’s farewell address is being strung out longer than a Death Row appeals case. Far be it from me to rain cynicism on The McGaughey Parade That Never Ends. But between shrewd strategizing by the retiring Super (she is, isn’t she?) and foot-dragging by the School Board, the School District soon may find itself in yet another mess.

For those of us who were driving by Sorrento Italian Market at 2 minutes until 7 on Monday morning, there was the proprietor, Albert Vera, dressed in his trademark power blue smock, raising his two beloved American flags. His daily ritual is proof that life goes on. A better man than I, Mr. Vera. Externally, he remains unflappable as the hurricane winds swirling around his personal life, even in technical retirement, are accelerating once again. Mr. Vera’s expression, however, does not change. On the last Friday dawn in May, his son was arrested by Redondo Beach police. And while the case remains to be played out, the $35,000 bail seemed to take Albert Vera Jr. out of the ordinary detainee category. On Monday night, for the second time in a month and a half, the City Council was scheduled, in closed session, to discuss Police Officer Heidi Keyantash’s suit against Mr. Vera, the former City Council member, and City Hall. Ms. Keyantash’s lawyer, who filed the lawsuit 10 months ago, has a court date the first week in July. At home, Mr. Vera nurtures his ailing wife Ursula. And together, they are grieving over the very sudden death of their son Ralph last October.

It would, by a slight margin, be hyperbolic to say that I feel tingly all over in the aftermath of a dramatic vote by School Board member Dana Russell at Tuesday night’s meeting. In a beautiful display of courageous principle, Dr. Russell, often a target of criticism in thefrontpageonline.com, displayed mettle that had gone previously un-noticed. Along with the School Board President Saundra Davis, the dentist voted against issuing what I believe were unwarranted raises to the 52 members of the School District’s management team. The School Board, which sometimes operates with all of the forethought of the Marx Brothers, waded out of its depth on this matter.

I see where the School Board voted by a surprisingly narrow 3 to 2 margin on Tuesday night to present an early vacation plum to the 52 members of the School District’s management team. All of them will receive raises, from little ones to gigantic increases (43.8 percent). Aside from the fact this is their second raise of the school year, what really reddens the faces of the Teachers Union and other Board critics is that the increases are retroactive to last September.

The justification, like much of this School Board’s conduct, was lost somewhere out there in space where it gets hazy. How they love to operate deep inside of fog where the community cannot see what they are doing. Call it the Bubar Syndrome, to which we shall shortly return. From a sensitivity standpoint, the timing of the raises was poor. The wounds of the angry members of the Teachers Union still are healing from the most recent hostile negotiations. How about a breather period? What is the rush, guys? The only logical rationale is to slide one more raise under the door of District Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey before she retires on the final day of last month. In honor of Flag Day, I don’t want to beat a comatose horse this morning about one more pay leap for the Super.