THE BELL CURVE:An open letter to the mayor

Dear Mayor Mansoor:

First off, let’s clear up the residency question.

I don’t live in Costa Mesa. But I am a very close neighbor, and the way I was brought up in Indiana, we looked after our neighbors. When they allow themselves to come off foolish or pedantic or arrogant, we tell them gently so they may not make the same mistakes again — even if they are already two-time losers. So it’s in that spirit that I write this letter.

I am told from news accounts in the Pilot that two years ago you sent off a letter to the president of the United States with some friendly but stern advice on how he should handle the illegal immigrant problem — and you got no response. Not even one of those form letters with stamped signatures from the mail room of the White House? This might have suggested to you that your previous letter didn’t work its way very far up the line of policy movers and shakers in the Bush administration.

That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It would be good and patriotic if we all vented our feelings on national issues with letters to the president. Democracy in action and all that.

The main problem here — I’ll cite some others later — is the use of the preemptive pronouns “we” and “our,” which occur about every other sentence in your current letter to the president that I just read in the Pilot. These pronouns require antecedents; “I” and “my” don’t.

I’m reminded of a throwaway comment by the former mayor of Newport Beach after a handshake meeting with President Bush. He told us jovially during a City Council meeting that he had told the president that we folks in Newport Beach were all behind the president in his foray into Iraq, which was patently false, even then. That mayor was extremely fuzzy on antecedents.

And so, I feel it necessary to point out, are you. If the letter I read is the one being sent, you claim to be writing “on behalf of the Costa Mesa City Council.”

The honest antecedent here — especially if you are writing on a city letterhead — is “60% of the City Council.” To be completely honest, you should probably also point out that the signers of this letter managed to win their jobs because of a split vote among their opponents, but the mailroom interns probably don’t really care that much.

It does, however, speak to an implication in your letter that the views expressed represent those of the citizens of Costa Mesa, which is also patently false. The only views you can offer without equivocation are your own personal views.

There has long been an assumption by most local politicians that they are always preaching to the choir in this hotbed of conservatism. That is growing steadily less true, both locally and in the country as a whole.

While you were debating the contents of your letter, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll came to quite different conclusions. Even though the approval rating for Bush fell to 34%, some 63% of respondents supported the main features of the Bush immigration bill. This included 65% of Republicans and 58% of respondents who identified themselves as “conservative.”

So you’re not exactly in the mainstream of thinking on immigration issues in this country, nor have you any right to make that assumption locally.

Which brings up another point. If you plan to continue having your correspondence ghosted by Councilman Eric Bever, I would suggest that you read it more carefully before it goes out. I realize that you exorcised an earlier Bever version that said a large number of auto accidents are caused by illegal immigrants — a charge the police chief shot down for lack of evidence. That was commendable, but not nearly enough.

Bever’s enthusiasms, which sometimes come off as hysteria, don’t translate into very persuasive arguments.

For example, in Bever’s rhetoric, the “deeply flawed” Bush immigration bill is an “affront to all law-abiding Americans” and a “disaster for our community and nation.” An “astounding” 262 arrestees (out of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants) have been turned up locally as “probable” illegals.

The Bush administration’s “lack of will” to enforce existing immigration law is “disrespectful toward all American citizens.” And on and on to Armageddon.

Whatever its shortcomings, I think you should start writing your own stuff. And keep in mind those antecedents.

— Joe Bell