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Roger Simon:

According to the most recent poll,the LA Times is failing miserably in its attempt to bring Schwarzenegger down. Arnold's percentages are actually going up as the Times continues to fan the flames of the scandal. What's interesting to me is that the paper didn't see that coming. It is a rather surprising example of psychological naivete coupled with an equally extensive lack of self knowledge on the part of the editors and publisher.

Let's start with the obvious: The LA Times is a virtual monopoly and everyone in Los Angeles knows it and most don't like it. Sure the paper gets a tiny bit of competition from the LA Weekly, the Daily News and the OC Register, but the operative word is "tiny." The New York Times in no way sits astride NY the way the LA Times sits astride LA. New York has a vibrant, competitive newspaper culture; LA has a dead newspaper culture.

Still, LA has a reasonably informed populace and that populace knows when the paper is using its monopoly to bully someone, even if that someone is a movie star with giant pecs ...

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