OPINION: Wither Eric?

Now that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nomination to be the next ambassador to India has gone up in smoke…

Oops – technically that hasn’t happened yet.

Of course, the same thing can be said for the sun setting this evening…technically it hasn’t happened… yet.

Garcetti and his cretinous media minions are now claiming that Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation – the results are scathing into his knowledge of and/or complicity in the burying of the Mayor’s longtime political hatchet man Rick Jacobs history of aggressive sexual misconduct and racism – is a “partisan hit job.”

Admittedly, that may actually be partially correct – except the Los Angeles Times’s Steve Lopez and the people paid with your tax dollars to continuously obfuscate for the Mayor may have the wrong party in mind.

It was mostly Democrats – long-time Garcetti supporters and employees – that put the kibosh on Garcetti’s move to India.  The Republican Grassley may have pulled the trigger, but it was Democrats who bought him the metaphorical gun, bought the ammo, loaded the ammo into the gun, and told Grassley exactly where to aim.

Bi-partisanship is always good to see.

Remember, Eric just couldn’t quit Jacobs, as they say – for without Rick, his Alpha-male attack dog, Garcetti, the prototype Beta-male, would never have become Mayor.  In a rather sad semi-Faustian bargain, Garcetti was able to politically be where he is today because of Jacobs but, also because of Jacobs, he can never, ever go any further. (I use the prefix ‘semi’ because I’m not terribly in the mood to re-read my Goethe right now)

Leading us to the question of – Wither Eric?

He cannot simply be shifted to a different ambassadorship – that ship – even to a small or silly country, the kind of place, if you became President, you promised your best friend in high school could be ambassador to during a lakeside kegger – has sailed. He will not be confirmed by the Senate for anything – literally.

As to other DC gigs, it can get a bit murky. It is possible Biden could try to shift Garcetti to some White House “at-will” staff kind of thing – like in charge of a task force aimed to create “walkabilityequitableurbanneighborhoodness” or something but that is rather doubtful.

Also, deputy under-secretary for sidewalk initiatives in Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation – which was supposed to Eric Garcetti’s Department of Transportation – seems a bit too incoherently mean, even for someone as incoherent and mean as Joe Biden.

To be blunt, the only way Garcetti gets back into real politics is if Donald Trump names his Vice-Presidential candidate in 2024.

One supposes the sillier parts of the high-tech private sector – even Garcetti is not quite as delusional as Prince Harry, for God’s sake –  may have something to offer, though a job at Twitter seems out at this point.

There are think tanks of course, but….sorry, too easy.

At the very worst, he could ask Mark Ridley-Thomas for a job at USC.

Oh, wait…