Describing himself as a guy who was "you could say, like a head of state," departing California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez gave a bizarre interview to Spanish language Univision in which he claimed that slams on his lush lifestyle were based on his ethnicity.
The Sacramento Bee broke the story today, quoting Nunez as telling the Univision program Voz y Voto: "Because of the fact I am Mexican, they think I have to sleep under a cactus and eat from taco stands."
No word yet on who this awful bunch of "theys" are. Nunez' "woe-is-me" victim scenario was set off by last year's coverage of his spending practices in the Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other media outlets, based on an investigation by Nancy Vogel at the L.A. Times, which revealed that Nunez spent thousands on "office expenses" at posh Louis Vuitton in Paris, and thousands on a "meeting" at a pricey wine purveyor's in Bordeaux.
The interview shows that Nunez suffers from extraordinarily thin skin, and has been silently simmering about his perceived ethnic victimhood.
The story in the Bee prompted a flurry of angry online comments, including this one from a reader claiming to be Mexican: "The people of California would be better served by fewer pompous, self-righteous bigots given the opportunity to serve in the Assembly. I wish he would just shut up and leave. Thank GOD for term limits!"
Nunez' frequent apologist, the hardcore partisan spinner and media manipulator Steven Maviglio, who this year ham-handedly tried but failed to taint the reputation of the Weekly's Marc Cooper, insisted to the Bee that "You cannot deny there's some overtly racial overtones to this."
So now we know that Nunez not only sees himself as a racial victim, but, Al Haig-like, fantasized that he was a head of state. (In fact, the Speaker's job is granted internally by the other Democratic legislators, not by the voters.)
Nunez wanted badly to keep his not-the-head-of-state job. In January the Weekly was, arguably, the only California media outlet to name and run the photographs of every legislator, included Nunez, who would have been able to cling to office for years if voters had approved Proposition 93 to water down term limits.
When voters turned down Nunez's bid via Prop. 93 to overstay his term limits, his power immediately began to fade. He was replaced earlier this month as Speaker by L.A.'s Karen Bass. But Bass, instead of sending a message about working across the aisle to fix the disastrous California budget, hired partisan pet rock Maviglio as her chief media manipulator.
Get ready for more attempts to cry "racism" to quell very normal, very fair, and in fact very important, criticisms and investigations of Sacramento's deeply unpopular 120 legislators (Here's a pdf of today's PPIC poll showing the legislature's approval rating has plunged to 26 percent), who happen to these days include a large number of Latinos, blacks, gays and other minorities.
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Comments
There are 4 comments posted for this article.
Would you be interested in seeing the 2,000+ emails we've received with racist comments? Or perhaps you would note the extraordinary number of comments deleted from the Bee's connection today because they were racist. But no, Jill, That would require accurate reporting. And I know you can't have that.
BTW, are you ever going to correct that error-filled article that appeared in the Weekly that you refer to? You never responded to repeated requests for corrections, even after your inquiries to the legislature for the information proved you were wrong? The truth hurts, eh?
And it appears my comments on Mr. Cooper's article with seven unattributed quotes seemed to hit home. He actually is using names with the quotes these days.
Posted on May 22, 2008 5:05 PM by Steven Maviglio
Hey, Nunez himself is guilty of racism by insulting taco trucks, if you listen to some of taco truck aficionados, starting with your very own Jonathan Gold. Isn't Gold on board with those guys trying to save taco trucks from being subject to some regulations regarding how long they can loiter and where, like in front of established, tax-paying businesses?
Many people feel taco trucks pose sanitation hazards and make the city look like TJ, but it seems odd that Nunez would be one of those people.
Of course, Gold isn't a "head of state," and will arguably eat anything anywhere, but still, he's eaten at some pretty fancy places himself and he knows from tacos.
Now, Hillary Clinton is almost a head of state, as a Senator and former First Lady, and the Mayor took her to eat tacos in East L A. Is Nunez better than the Mayor? (Okay, I've seen the Mayor at Nobu eating pricey suchi with Robert DeNiro and drinking champagne, but I don't know it charged us for it as a Head of State.)
A number of other Mexican pols are embarrassed by this interview, too bad Nunez has to go out with such a lack of style. Maybe, to win the people's hearts again, he'll start getting his Photo Ops at taco stands like the Mayor. If you claim to be a humble man of the people, it doesn't hurt to pretend.
Posted on May 22, 2008 6:04 PM by susan
Steven Maviglio's curious attack on the Weekly, me, and Marc Cooper is inaccurate.
Our insightful January story by Max Taves about Prop. 93 contained two factual errors that were not central to the story and were quickly corrected online in January, as follows:
Editor's note: This article inaccurately said legislators would get a pension boost under Prop. 93. In fact, one or two legislators would have gotten the boost. Due to an editing error, the article also stated that California legislators earn twice as much as New York legislators. California legislators earn 50 percent more than legislators in New York.
In addition, Maviglio's arrogance in imagining that a top-notch political analyst like Marc Cooper has changed his reporting style because of criticism from politicians looking to dupe the voters is typical Sacramento dissembling. Now that Nunez has lost his grip on power, sources are much more willing to speak on the record about Nunez & Co. Cooper will continue to do stellar reporting on Sacramento, and he'll continue to be fearless of media manipulators like partisan pet rock Steven Maviglio.
Posted on May 23, 2008 12:43 PM by Jill Stewart
Nunez rode into power largely via support from Hispanics leveraged through his anti-prop 187 agitating in the mid-90s. This technique is bread and butter for him.
Posted on May 25, 2008 12:57 PM by Peter