Hurling Invective in Troubled Waters : Politics: Instead of attacking Tom Bradley, Maxine Waters should answer for her own years in Sacramento and Washington.

Self-serving cynicism and leadership: The two just don’t go together. Yet recently we have seen a curious combination of the two drip from nearly every word uttered by one of Los Angeles’ “leaders,” and we are tired of it. Maxine Waters, it’s time for you to do more than criticize. It’s time, after all these years, for you to get down to the hard work of making change happen in a constructive and collegial manner.

Congresswoman Waters has created her own cottage industry by seeking out the nearest television camera and hurling invective at the most convenient target. Frustration is understandable, but the bandwagon of negatives is intolerable. No one should be exempt from criticism, least of all elected officials. When Waters does nothing but criticize simply to hear herself criticize, well, that’s when we say enough is enough. That’s when we ask: You were a state legislator for 14 years and you are now in your second term in Congress; what do you have to show, besides your verbal broadsides, for your time in office?

Let’s take just one example. Waters has complained that too little federal job-training money is spent on African-Americans in their 20s. We couldn’t agree more. That’s why, year after year, we have sought congressional legislation that would allow summer job-training money to be spent on those who are out of high school. But where has Waters, a member of Congress representing South Los Angeles, been? Why hasn’t she gotten this legislation passed? Better yet, why hasn’t she worked with us to get the job done? We think it’s because of self-centeredness: It’s Waters’ way or the highway. And then, the drumbeat of gratuitous criticism.

Consider this: For 14 years, Waters sat at the right hand of power in Sacramento. Yet what does she have to show for all those years? Ever-declining state revenue for urban areas, which has forced us to cut back on vital services such as police protection, education, job training and economic development, and dramatically increased burdens on cities and counties, which now must struggle to care for those without homes or medical care. And so goes the litany of misery created by years of gridlock in Sacramento, gridlock at whose center Waters was when she deemed it convenient.

And yet the vitriol continues. Most recently, it was directed against the man who has served the people of Los Angeles for 50 years as police officer, councilman and mayor. Why must Waters create rifts in our own community? Why must she denigrate the achievements of the Bradley Administration, which integrated City Hall, caused change in South Los Angeles (development of the Vermont-Slauson, Martin Luther King and Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw shopping centers, construction of seven new housing developments in Watts alone and ground-breaking for 15 more) and brought the appointment of Chief Willie Williams and the Christopher Commission’s LAPD reform.

Perhaps Waters has forgotten what Los Angeles was like before the Bradley Administration forced Daryl Gates from power and what government was like before Bradley desegregated City Hall.

There can be no question that we should all have done more to prevent the unrest of 1992. That means everyone: us, you, the private sector, the media and, yes, even Waters. That is why it is so disappointing when Waters attempts to use her torrents of cynicism to wash away her own record. Her tactics are so transparent that they have become intolerable.

Many of us are working hard to make life better in our neighborhoods. When we are criticized, we ask that the criticism come from someone working as hard as we are. Maxine Waters, it’s time to stop talking and start delivering to the people of South Los Angeles, and remember you can’t do it alone.