Opinion: They’re calling it bottled Watergate...

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Why does government sometimes have to confirm every single stereotype about itself?

My colleague Garrett Therolf’s story today is about a college student who earns $9.92 an hour working for Los Angeles County on duties that extend to peeling the labels off bottles of water, printing out computerized labels bearing the county seal, and slapping them on the water bottles.

The county supervisors do not want anyone to think that they are endorsing any particular brand of bottled water, not the members of the public there in the room with them, nor that audience out there watching in TV-land. No product placement here -- no, sirree.

So let me get there before Jay Leno does. One, although their ethical scruples are admirable, the five supervisors are by no stretch of the imagination tastemakers and trendsetters. The public does not rush to copy their hair, imitate their clothes, buy the pens they use. I am not even altogether sure that the maker of this water -- rumored to be Arrowhead -- would hurry to mount an ad campaign showing the sipping supes and promoting ‘’the water drunk by the leaders of the most populous county in the United States.’

Two, what is with going to the trouble of peeling off the original label? Why bother? Just slap the new label over it.

Three, why are these people drinking bottled water at all? It’s expensive, the plastic is horrible for the environment, and even worse if it isn’t recycled. City and county governments are casting about desperately to cut costs anywhere. A doctor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center told The Times today that all bottled water, for staff and patients, has been yanked in order to save money.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that voters may not be able to comprehend the magnitude of multi-billion-dollar budgets. But paying someone on a government payroll $9.92 an hour to peel the labels off bottled water? That, they understand.

So, supervisors, take your coffee cup -- the one that says ‘World’s Best Dad,’ or in the case of Supervisor Gloria Molina, ‘World’s Best Mom’ -- and fill it from your own personal bottled water stash in your office, the one you paid for yourself. Or fill it at the drinking fountain before the meeting. And how’s this for a perk? You get to cut in line at the fountain.