Nattering Nabobs Anew

Political alliteration was born at the Republican National Convention of 1964 when candidate Barry Goldwater blamed the anti-Vietnam War riots on “sensation-seeking columnists.”

This was followed shortly thereafter by then-President Lyndon Johnson who, reacting to a growing peace movement, called his media critics “nervous nellies.”

Then along came the master alliterist, Spiro Agnew, who saw the press as “nattering nabobs of negativism” and then resigned in disgrace for shaking down some building contractors.

He also came up with “pusillanimous pussyfooters,” but I liked nattering nabobs better.

In each case, the alliterists were criticizing those of us in the media who seemed to tilt to the left. I tilt both ways, but I am not immune to invective. One critic calls me a “liberal puke,” which, while not exactly alliterative, does possess a certain lyrical charm.

Which brings me to our mayor, the lovable Richard Riordan. While visiting the Republican convention in Philly, he told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer that the reason pre-convention preparations in L.A. seemed so chaotic was due to “the radicals, the ‘60s and ‘70s liberals who write for the L.A. Times. They have a gotcha attitude and they are negative on everything.” Well now.

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To begin with, there is hardly anything alliterative, lyrical or otherwise memorable in most of what Riordan has to say. However, he does qualify for that group, composed mostly of Republicans, who manage to blame the liberalmedia (it’s one word to them) for their own sins of inadequacy. And he did get my attention.

I wanted to ask him personally who he had in mind in his reference to radical-liberal-negative-gotcha guys at the L.A. Times. I didn’t make Nixon’s enemies list, and I was hoping that at least I had made Riordan’s Gotcha List.

The mayor, however, was busy arranging exclusive sky box seats for his rich friends at the upcoming Democratic National Convention and handed me off to a spokesman, Manuel Valencia, who laughed and said his boss wasn’t talking about anyone in particular.

“I was hoping,” I said, “he was referring to me. I’m the liberal puke around here.”

Laughter. “Well, if he was referring to you,” Valencia said, “he was. . . . “ The rest of it was drowned out by more laughter. When I tried to pin him down, even more laughter got in the way. Then, I got caught up in the laughter and soon I didn’t know what the hell either of us was talking about.

It’s a nifty technique. Laughter is contagious. I had not been talking to Valencia for 15 minutes when we were best buddies. He even referred to himself as a liberal puke. “I wear that,” he declared, laughing, “with pride.” Hahahahohohoheehee.

Then he finally said that the mayor feels the L.A. media are too critical in a general sense. “He sees a liberal bent to the media,” Valencia added. “Make a mistake and gotcha! That’s what he was referring to.”

Then we laughed and said goodbye.

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I telephoned Jane Von Bergen, the reporter for the Philly newspaper who wrote the Riordan piece and who seems to be a very serious person. No laughter here. She generously searched her notes to see if Riordan had made specific reference to me as a Gotcha Guy, but could find nothing.

She did, however, come up with a quote from Mayor Dick that she hadn’t used in her story. He said, “The newspaper [that’s us] has grown to hate L.A. That’s why the ownership changed.”

“I didn’t use it,” Von Bergen said, “because it didn’t make any sense.”

It doesn’t make sense to me either. No one I know in the newsroom has expressed any deep hatred for L.A. I mean, what’s to hate? It would be like hating the sky or the Pacific Ocean. As for our “change of management,” a phrase that sounds a little like a new boss at the corner deli, I may be wrong, but I think the sale had more to do with money than hatred.

“He seems like a nice guy,” Von Bergen said of Mayor Dick. Then she asked what I thought of him. I said, “Well, he smiles a lot and tries to be upbeat. But those are traits often associated with people who don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on the mayor, which is a typical radic-lib (an Agnew term) trick. I’m probably what he says I am, although not specifically mentioned: a scowling, cynical, bad-natured, hypercritical, sallow, hairy, unwashed, negative liberal puke Gotcha Guy. And a nattering nabob too.

From now on, it’s a new me. I’ll be the tittering, twittering, titillating tinkerbell of happy talk, bringing laughter wherever I go. Not to mention an alliteration or two.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com