Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday shrugged off a magazine cover with the word "failure" superimposed over his picture.
The cover is on the June issue of Los Angeles Magazine, a copy of which was made available Thursday.
"Well, it's a pretty nice smile," the mayor said during a Thursday morning news conference at City Hall. "A few pounds lighter and a couple of years younger so, what can I say?"
The picture appears to have been taken three years ago, when the mayor was on the front cover of the same magazine with the headline "The Influentials."
The mayor did not comment on the accompanying article by Ed Leibowitz, excerpts of which were made available to the website L.A. Observed.
"We are bitter because you promised us so much," Leibowitz wrote. "What you now lead is an administration in which politics almost always trumps policy ... There have been no great civic works to mark your tenure -- no public art or municipal architectural feat to instill pride."
