Come on! Ya gotta love the complete ineptitude being exhibited by government in the management of the state's financial matters. Love it or cry is what I say. That was my attitude as I lounged next to the pool in Coronado last week and read this headline that could be found only in the San Diego Union-Tribune: "Voter-backed gaming deal with Sycuan in jeopardy."

Remember that whole deal?

The Sycuan tribe was one of four that had a gaming deal with the state that California voters had to approve as they considered different ballot initiatives last February. It turns out that the Sycuans, from the gambling Mecca known as El Cajon, had not themselves formally approved the deal.  That cost the state coffers about $30 million in fees that the tribe would have owed. As I wrote back on June 30 on this site:

As the story goes, the Sycuan Indian tribe "has avoided paying the cash-strapped state $30 million in gambling profits." The money is supposed to be paid at the end of July as part of the deal that we voters approved allowing four Indian tribes to expand their casinos for which they would pay to the state a larger share of the take. The state that is more than $15 billion in the hole. The state whose governor told the Sycuans that they could wait to pay the $30 million after "the Sycuan gave $45,000 to the campaign for a November redistricting initiative promoted by Schwarzenegger," the Los Angeles Times reported. "Quid" meet "Quo?"

The whole deal could die. "Now, at the request of Sycuan's neighbors and a gambling watchdog," the U-T reported, "federal attorneys are taking a hard look at whether the Interior Department could legally approve a gambling agreement that had not yet been executed by the tribe."

Are you laughing yet?

"If they conclude the answer is no, the federal government's approval could be revoked and Sycuan could be forced to resubmit the deal to the Interior Department if and when it is ratified by the tribe. That would give federal officials, who were troubled by the agreement's authorization of an off-reservation casino in Dehesa Valley, their first real opportunity to review the compact."

Whether the feds will or can actually scotch the deal is a matter of much debate and potential arguments in court.  Keep an eye on the U-T for more on this as no one else seems to be covering this state-wide story.

So, maybe John Edwards is an alien?

Stay with me on this next one. I think it'll be worth it.

The following is from the script for the 1997 movie "Men In Black" that stars Tommy Lee Jones (as K, or Kay as the script refers to him) and Will Smith (as J, or Jay). ()

EXT. NEWSSTAND - DAY

CLOSE ON on various supermarket tabloids as a hand flips through them.

There are headlines like "POPE A FATHER!" and "TOP DOCTORS BAFFLED - BABY BORN PREGNANT!" and "MAN EATS OWN HOUSE!" (the subhead on

that one is "And That's Just the Appetizer, Says Neighbor.")

KAY and JAY are at a downtown newsstand. Kay is furiously searching through the tabs; Jay is standing behind him, a little embarrassed.

JAY

These are the hot sheets?

Kay pulls a copy of the Weekly World News from the stand and gives the guy a buck.

KAY

Best damn investigative reporting on the planet.  But hey, go ahead, read The New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes.

JAY

You're actually looking for tips in a supermarket tabloid?

KAY

Not looking for. Found.

He SMACKS the paper down on the hood in front of Jay, the pages turned open to a headline in typeface so large one would think it reserved for the Second Coming:

Farm wife says: "ALIEN STOLE MY HUSBAND'S SKIN!"

Keep that in mind when you read the column, "Old Media Dethroned," by Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times on the relative merits of "alternative" and "traditional" media. 

Rutten wrote about the "news" that former presidential candidate John Edwards had an affair. (Do we really find it so scandalous these days when a politician has had an affair or failed to tell the truth, especially about a sexual affair? Sadly routine, yes, but scandalous if the sex act occurred outside the Oval Office? I'm just asking.) 

The "Edwards scandal," Rutten offered, "has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion."  

Rutten concluded that "the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana." (Whether the Edwards story is "political journalism" is a decision each of us can make alone.)

Of course, the news media in general have not been viewed particularly favorably for many years by many of their own consumers and, in that regard, Rutten's recognition of any illusions is, perhaps, also to be placed on the roster of the extinct. Whatever Edwards did was fully within the traditional media's established limits of acceptable political journalism if they ever actually established ANY limits.

In a time when the question even arises as to whether people rely more on the likes of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" for their news, is there really an argument as to whether the "traditional" media have been atop the throne? You don't have to answer that.

Rutten makes the assumption that has become all too common, that "media" is a word that defines a single entity.  In fact, "media" is plural (I'm sorry, but I just have to make the point clearly) and different individual newspapers and broadcast news organizations and "new" media organizations and "alternative" media organizations perform differently in presenting their versions of the first version of history.

I remember when ABC's "Nightline" wouldn't cover in a straightforward manner the story of Michael Jackson allegedly committing child abuse. Instead, the show's producers -- when they just couldn't avoid it anymore -- would finally take up the story by focusing on media coverage of the story. And the ratings would climb after this most traditional news organization gave up on its critical assessment of the value of the story and yielded to the limits established largely by tabloid media.

Often, too often in these days of 24/7 news-cycles, finding a news organization that is the least bit critical in assessing the information it obtains is extraordinarily difficult. Critical assessment includes not only confirming the information, but also determining whether it should be published.  (Remember the story The New York Times did on John McCain intimating he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a lobbyist? The paper did not have the story cold, but went with it anyway.)  In that latter respect, Rutten maintains the traditional media failed in pursuing the Edwards "scandal," which was known to many reporters for months. 

But it's not so simple. There's a risk when you pursue a story that doesn't pan out and there's danger when you suspend critical assessment, don't "pursue" a story and publish it anyway. Historical context is vital here.

The Los Angeles Times, Rutten's own paper, might merit some scrutiny with respect to its own critical assessment for its "scoop," and subsequent all-too-credulous coverage, of the Bruce Ivins suicide story on Aug. 1. The recently-departed-from-this-mortal-coil Ivins, as you know, is the government's latest "only suspect" in the anthrax case. 

Remember when the government used the media to promote the idea that the anthrax mailings were the second phase of the attacks by Muslim terrorists who had a link of some sort to Iraq? And remember how many of the media pretty much swallowed that whole and reported it without challenge? (Take a look at Glenn Greenwald's piece on Salon.com for more on this.)

Having myself been on the receiving end of many "leaks" from law enforcement sources, it's very easy to see the flow of information on the proclaimed resolution of the seven-year old anthrax case as fitting a pattern that cries out for critical assessment.

In the pattern, a usually reliable FBI source, for example, tells you the bureau is about to perform a search of a suspect's domicile. You go and cover it with your cameras, fundamentally in the service of those who leaked the "news" to you. You run it on national television. After all, it's a fact that the FBI searched the house, but the fact ultimately does not serve the truth.

The above is what happened with the previous "lone suspect" in the anthrax case. (I won't use his name because he doesn't need it out there anymore.) FBI agents wearing biohazard suits searched the lone suspect's house in full view of cameras from a national broadcast news organization, the name of which begins the alphabet. The images aired and the then-lone suspect was essentially defamed. (He later received $5.8 million in a settlement from the government.)

Remember Richard Jewell? Remember Wen Ho Lee? The government made the case against these lone suspects as much in the media as in the courts, most notably on NBC News and in The New York Times, respectively. Jewell reportedly got a settlement of more than a million from NBC, the New York Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Lee got $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations.  

In that context, together with the case of the previous lone suspect in the anthrax case, one has to wonder why the lack of critical assessment in the case of Bruce Ivins. Is it just a matter of suicide-as-confession being too good a story for many, though certainly not all, news organizations to allow the truth to be pursued and possibly get in the way?  

Of course, I have yet to see the National Enquirer's coverage. Interestingly, Ivins himself reportedly imagined the tabloid's headline on him if the paper had discovered his apparent increasing separation from reality.

"'Paranoid man works with deadly anthrax!!!' he wrote in one e-mail message in July 2000, predicting what a National Enquirer headline might read if he agreed to participate in a study on his work."

That's what the reportedly dethroned New York Times reported, but don't believe it until you see it in the National Enquirer.