From the left: Media’s Laughable Musk Panic

While he has “no idea whether [Elon Musk’s] influence on the company would be positive,” TK News’ Matt Taibbi is loving the spectacle of Musk’s Twitter-takeover bid, as “other media figures” insist “Musk’s influence . . . will be bad — very bad, bad!” What “a self-own this is,” since the same folks spent “the last six years practically turgid with joy as other unaccountable billionaires tweaked the speech landscape in their favor,” but now are “howling over the mere rumor that a less censorious fat cat might get to sit in one of the big chairs. O the inhumanity!” One critic was even “railing against Musk in the pages of . . . the Washington Post! A newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos.”

Urban beat: LA Crime Surge Is Targeting Wealthy

“Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles,” but it’s not in the neighborhoods you’d think, James Varney reports at RealClearInvestigations. “Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes.” Census and LAPD crime statistics for the 12-month period through January show that “the richer and whiter the area, the greater the increase in both raw crime totals and percentages of total city crime. This includes a wide range of felonies, from robbery, burglary, shoplifting and car theft to aggravated assault and rape.” Now “fear is more pronounced than ever in posh areas,” a major switch for “Angelenos who aren’t used to feeling crime’s pinch.”

Foreign desk: Envoy Is Hiding Iran-Deal Details

Special Iran envoy Robert Malley has yet to appear before Congress to update Americans on the Iran deal, writes Rep. Claudia Tenney at Newsweek. Why? The “deal would be terrible for our security.” It likely includes “as much as $90 billion” in sanctions relief, as well as $7 billion to get back hostages, and contains “no discussion of Iran’s threatening ballistic missile program . . . or its support of terrorist proxies.” The “biggest secret”? Biden “has no plans at all to involve Congress,” something “mandated by law.” Tehran knows a deal without bipartisan support “will not be durable” but is willing to play along for “a lucrative payout.” It’s “telling, and deeply concerning, that the Biden administration fails to realize this.”

COVID journal: Mandates for the ‘Commoners’

This month, “a slew of top Cabinet officials and lawmakers attended the annual Gridiron Club dinner,” where “at least 72 people caught COVID-19,” including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Adam Schiff, notes Robby Soave at Reason. This shows why “you can’t just go back to normal” on COVID — although “political elites” can. “If cases rise, they’ll punish the common folk, but don’t expect them to make many social sacrifices.” And “no political figure better represents this hypocrisy than Vice President Kamala Harris, who was recently caught ignoring mask rules.” White House flack Jen Psaki defended Harris, noting that the veep’s only human — but then, “aren’t we all? Why are government officials the only people who can get away with this?”

Media watch: Still Rushing To Stop Trump

Rather than “reckon” with its decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, charges The Wall Street Journal’s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., a Washington Post editorial instead “justifies” the move, claiming it was the prudent course after Russian influence in the 2016 election campaign. Yet media outlets had “plenty of leads to confirm or disprove the story,” which was broken by “an established news organization, the New York Post.” Indeed, “Occam’s razor strongly suggested” the laptop was “exactly what it was purported to be — and intelligent journalists everywhere knew it.” Yet they discounted the story because they “knew” Donald Trump’s re-election would be a disaster. And “if you don’t see the same presumption already working overtime and on steroids in advance of 2024, you aren’t paying attention.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board