Affirmative Action for Bruins and Conservatives

The rival paper had a fascinating letter to the sports editor last Saturday:

We soon will find relief from the excessive, slanted, negative campaigning for the presidential election, but how much longer must L.A. sports fans endure the same from your staff writers in regard to USC football? Does anyone crave more extensive, unbiased reporting of the local sports scene?

The Times' coverage of USC football dominates the weekly section at a level typically reflected in a fan newsletter. Your writers' love affair with the Trojans has been so obsessive that they are running thin on material to put in their daily love letters! Can we please be spared from reports of the star sightings at practices and the high school recruits' weekly performances? Who really cares?

Exactly! This is obviously a diehard conservative showing righteous indignation about media bias. And she is a UCLA football fan (or maybe a Caltech football fan, if they have a team) annoyed at USC's monopoly on local media coverage.

Never mind that USC is in the thick of a national title race, while no one else in town can say the same at the moment. Never mind that USC sells out one of the largest stadiums in the country every game. Never mind that USC is on an unprecedented run over the past six years. Never mind that half the people at my gym yesterday were wearing USC garb, while none were wearing evidence of loyalty to USC's local rivals.

If the Times gave UCLA or Occidental or Pierce College the same kind of coverage that they give USC, those schools could surely achieve equal heights.

And if the media gave the same kind of coverage to an uncharismatic and bumbling John McCain that they give to the charismatic, well-organized Barack Obama, the GOP could win the White House again, maybe this time actually being able to enact some of the agenda that they've promised to enact for four decades.

It's said that conservatives favor freedom while liberals favor equality. But conservatives like equality just as much as the next guy -- let's get equally positive coverage for our guys, even when they're stumbling and losing. Anything less would be just unfair to our embittered pro-Palin political minority.

Call ACORN to lobby on our behalf.