Even the Speechifying Sultan of Speakership Needs a Spin Doctor

THE SPEAKER’S SPEAKER: House Speaker Newt Gingrich(R-Ga.) has no problem attracting attention from the nation’s media. Controlling the hordes of reporters that trail the Speaker is a bit more complicated task. That’s where Tony Blankley comes in.

As the voluble Gingrich’s media strategist, Blankley has had his hands full this year responding to the crush of ethics controversies surrounding the Speaker and trying to squelch some of his more eyebrow-raising remarks.

A former California assistant attorney general, Blankley got his start in politics in the San Fernando Valley in the early 1980s. He worked on former U.S. Rep. Bobbi Fiedler’s campaign and later became her legislative director in Washington.

“Newt is extremely lucky to have him,” said Fiedler, who served in the House from 1981 to 1987. “It’s a good balance between Newt’s more aggressive style and Tony’s more reflective approach.”

Blankley, 47, is also known for his wit, acquaintances say. In fact, he recently issued a tongue-in-cheek press release announcing another shocking ethics complaint lodged against the Speaker.

“Proof now exists,” Blankley wrote, referring to his boss’ meat-eating ways, “that Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pays money to people to seek out healthy cows, have them killed and then have the dead cow flesh ground up and put under a hot flame.”

*

HIZZONER’S POLITICAL ROLE: In the courtroom, Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito appears to bend over backwards to be fair, allowing neither side in the sensational O.J. Simpson trial an unfair advantage.

In the political arena, it appears that America’s most famous jurist employs a similar tactic--as evidenced by the experience of two San Fernando Valley-area politicos.

Campaign records at the secretary of state’s office show that Ito covers his bases, contributing financially to both Democrats and Republicans.

He signed a modest check over to then-state Sen. David A. Roberti’s campaign committee in 1993, boosting the powerful Van Nuys Democrat’s coffers by a token $100.

Just two days previous, he had contributed $100 to his state Assembly representative, Republican Bill Hoge, whose district wraps from Ito’s Pasadena neighborhood over to Sunland-Tujunga. In 1994, Ito donated another $100 to help Hoge win re-election.

Though Ito played both sides of the partisan fence in supporting those Valley-area legislators, he’s shown no hesitation in picking a Republican for the governor’s office.

Ito is reported to be a Democrat, but he set aside party differences long enough to direct three $100 checks to Gov. Pete Wilson in 1990, 1992 and 1994. It is Wilson, of course, who has authority to fill the state Court of Appeal seat that Ito’s been eyeing.

*

POLICE PAL HAL: He was a victim of his own success.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, trying to line up city politicos behind the beleaguered Police Department, organized and emceed a raucous rally in council chambers Tuesday that was packed with 14 television cameras and seven still cameras.

With the potential for such coverage, Bernson succeeded in getting Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Willie L. Williams to join him at the rally--and promptly found himself upstaged.

“With the mayor and the chief here, who’s going to care about Hal Bernson?” grumbled an aide, correctly. On the 11 p.m. newscasts, not a single network affiliate aired footage of or even mentioned Bernson with regard to the rally. Only Riordan and Williams merited mention by name or garnered a sound bite.

Nearly the entire City Council signed Bernson’s resolution supporting the Police Department, including Councilman Joel Wachs, who blasted an allegation by O.J. Simpson defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz that police officers are trained to lie.

“For defense attorneys to say that police officers are taught to lie is like police officers saying that attorneys are taught to tell the truth. Not in this world!” said Wachs in a statement rich in irony, since the veteran councilman is--what else?--a Harvard-educated attorney.

The implications of Wachs’ statement for his actions as a 24-year city policy maker have not yet been investigated.

*

MORE POLICE PALS: Another council member who was also promised her share of the limelight at Tuesday’s police rally was Laura Chick, who in the end got no time at the microphone.

But Bernson publicly thanked Chick for spearheading the drive for police boosters to wear blue-ribbon pins to show their support.

One of those who have taken up the pin: Robert L. Shapiro, a member of the Simpson defense team and the object of so much denigration by the very police officials he says he supports.

“It’s ironic,” said Chick, a blue-ribbon pin in her lapel. “My theory is that he’s wearing it because he’s gotten the message that the public isn’t going to stay silent as they put the LAPD on trial.”

The public is behind its men and women in blue, said Chick, and “if Mr. Shapiro shares those sentiments, then it’s appropriate he wear the pin. But I think a great many people will be suspicious.”

*

SPEAKING OF CHICK: Gang shootouts are killing children on the streets of Los Angeles. Police are leaving the force in droves with morale at an all-time low. City officials face a $200-million deficit in next year’s budget.

But with such dire problems plaguing the City of Angels, the issue of utmost importance among residents in the west San Fernando Valley is protruding railroad tracks.

That’s right. The No. 1 complaint from residents calling into Chick’s City Council office concerns the jolts motorists suffer when driving over tracks in the West Valley, particularly the old Southern Pacific railroad tracks that run parallel to Oxnard and Victory boulevards.

The tracks have been purchased by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has tentative plans to use the right-of-way to build a mostly underground rail line from North Hollywood to Warner Center. That means the MTA is responsible for maintaining the tracks.

Chick field deputy Eric Rose said his boss is taking the complaints from angry motorists seriously by writing and calling MTA chief Franklin White, pressuring him to make the bumpy tracks his top priority.

If White doesn’t come through, Rose said Chick will consider upping the stakes. She will introduce a motion to halt all rail-line construction countywide until the MTA makes the protruding tracks, well, less protruding.

The MTA, Roe said, “should take their responsibility seriously.”

By the way, the No. 2 complaint made to Chick’s office is about the scavengers who steal recyclables from the residential recycling bins. Chick has already introduced a motion to pay cops overtime to crack down on that problem.

This column was reported by Times staff writers Marc Lacey in Washington, D.C., Cynthia H. Craft in Sacramento and Henry Chu and Hugo Martin in Los Angeles.