California Insider

With a solid 76 percent of Californians, according to this week's Field Poll, supporting the war in Iraq, history might want to record how the state's chief executive stood on the crucial question of whether the United States should have begun the conflict without the backing of the United Nations. Unfortunately, we may never know. I've been engaged in a running exchange of e-mails with Gray Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio, but the press secretary can't seem to give me a clear answer. He offered up several published quotes that showed that Davis, like President Bush and most other Americans, wanted UN backing for the war. And he says once Bush gave the go-ahead sign, Davis "deferred to the president." But as far as I can tell there is nothing on record showing whether Gray, before the war, thought it was right or wrong for the coalition to launch this pre-emptive strike without the approval of the UN.