Quote Of The Day: Hizzoner Edition

"That's the real news here, by the way."
-- LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Hizzoner was trying to get reporters to focus on the "real news" -- low-emission trucks at the port -- but the reporters thought they'd rather pursue the story of his affair with recently-canned Telemundo TV newsette Mirthala Salinas.

"Have your poll numbers had dropped?"

"Did you speak with Telemundo about Salinas?"

"Do you feel responsible for her being fired?"

Just another day for the man who would be governor, if only he could keep his parts in his pants. And it went downhill from there, says the LATimes:

Villaraigosa customarily lingers after news conferences to answer additional questions from reporters and allow cameras to follow him to his vehicle.

But today, as the mayor strode from the podium, a half-dozen port police officers formed a skirmish line to block reporters and cameramen from approaching him.

"How come we're not allowed to talk to him?" one reporter barked.

"Why the suddenly limited access?" another demanded.

When the officers broke their formation, more than a dozen journalists starting running across a parking lot in pursuit of the mayor as he departed.

Spanish-language television reporter Alicia Unger was at the front of the pack, and as she approached one 20-foot container, Port Police Sgt. Kevin McCloskey shoved her into the side of it, further infuriating reporters, who began shouting.

"That's wrong," one television reporter screamed.

Another said: "You can't hit a woman like that."

In the background somewhere, watching this nightmare unfold, were the PR persons for the Port and the truck manufacturer, their mouths hanging open, thinking, "What were we thinking associating our stuff with that hack?"

The word will spread and no one will want the Mayor to give their products, events or causes face time. This is how political careers unravel.

Villaraigosa may have been at the port, but career-rise, he was on the edge of a cliff, watching his career tumble over the edge before his very eyes. Married, two kids (legit ones, anyway), already forgiven for a previous tawdry affair and now wrecking family and mistress alike.

Villaraigosa may be able to ride the American over-propensity for forgiveness to maintain some political future in LA, but any aspirations for higher office ... well, adios, Bub.