Well, no they’re not, and everyone opposing this particular interp of the Consent Decree is not a flaming idiot or scoundrel, as Rutten makes them out to be. The second half of Rutten’s article shows that it’s he who doesn’t understand the issues which underlie their questioning this particular interpretation of how extensive the financial disclosures should be; it’s also the responsibility of these lawmakers to consider the big picture, the impact on public safety for the city as a whole, whereas the judge whom Rutten imagines is “doing a slow burn” while the lawmakers “fiddle” has his own different, and much narrower, job to do.

Intelligent and rational disagreement would have been one thing, but it’s because of this overall smug, superior dismissal (and impugning) of all these lawmakers and the DA (who don’t often all agree on anything), among others, that I suggested Rutten should follow his own advice, and “go play politics somewhere else.” Off the payroll of the Times.

No one believes the disclosure regs would do anything to curb truly crooked cops, who wouldn’t put their ill-gotten gains in the accounts of their kids or parents, let alone themselves, so all his rambling about cases of bad cops is irrelevant; even former cops Smith, Zine and Parks oppose the current form of the disclosure requirements, and question how secure the info would be; and people following anti-gang efforts of all stripes, from the LAT Editorial writers to you, Celeste, and people from right to left, have opined that questioning this instead of accepting it blindly is the right thing to do.

If we lose hundreds of gang cops over this, all the talk at conferences like this one will definitely be for naught, proving Woody right (and I want him to be wrong on this). General commenters like Tim Rutten, whose articles more often run in the Calendar section, and who know nothing about the gang issue or cops, should just butt out and not make things worse. Maybe when Hiller thinks about further cuts, he can ask what Tim Rutten contributes to the city, informed dialogue on this issue or bottom line of the paper.