Gary Mendoza: Consumer-Rights Warrior?

There is a good chance that no daily paper in the nation is more ridiculous than the Register when it comes to political coverage. On July 16—at the moment corporate corruption scandals such as Enron were dominating the news, the Register news section carried this unattributed headline: "Cox Wants to Help Parents."

We're sure Newport Beach Republican Congressman Chris Cox—who will surely win re-election in his race against (among others) Democrat John Graham, but who is equally likely to be eyeing a U.S. Senate seat in 2004—was delighted by the election-year favor. He's the author of the mid-1990s anti-consumer legislation that gave corporate executives greater legal immunity for alleged wrongdoing, a fact the Reg also ignored.

It hasn't all been trash in the Register. Kudos to reporter Jim Hinch, who on Oct. 4 reported that Gail Hutton had privately advised Hearthside Homes executive Lucy Dunn to sue the city of Huntington Beach as a tactic to get approval for a pipeline leading to a company real-estate development project. Who is Hutton? Huntington Beach's city attorney.