Covering The Coverage: The LA Times Is Not Above Using Alberto Gonzales To Get Your Attention

We were just sent a link to an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today about “what Latinos want” this presidential election. It said something about “hard work” and “the chance to build a better future,” and then we started to play Snood… but wait a minute! We scrolled down to the bottom of the page and there we found former Attorney General and Guanabee Most Embarrassing Latino runner-up Alberto Gonzales’ grimacing mug looking back at us. We had seen his name in the byline at the top of the story when we began reading and didn’t even think twice because it’s a fairly common name and, surely, it couldn’t be THAT Alberto Gonzales, but OH it is.

The article itself, is ridiculously pointless. Rodriguez quotes the Pew Hispanic center’s data on Latinos being the largest minority group in the nation (duh) tells us Hispanics care about immigration this election (thanks for the scoop, Beto) and kind of sort of but not really implies that this presidential race is anybody’s game (as if!) when everyone and their abuela knows Latinos have had it with the GOP, mainly BECAUSE of Alberto Gonzales and his shenanihans. Then it ends with the deliciously smug footnote, “Alberto R. Gonzales is the former attorney general of the United States.” In case, like us, you are sitting in front of your computer in utter disbelief.

But, it’s gotten 129 comments so far, (and it’s not even noon at the time of this writing.) Most of them being simply the question of WHY the LA Times would devote valuable space to someone who, quite frankly, embarrasses the shit out of us. (Us being Latinos, Americans and people with a soul everywhere.) We have a theory about why the LA Times would sink so low and it rhymes with minternet shraffic.

What Latinos want from their president [LA Times]
Alberto Gonzales coverage on Guanabee