SUDDENLY Tuesday’s election is more than a recall. It has also become a referendum on the Los Angeles Times. In an astonishing story from page A34 of Sunday’s Times, Readers Angry at The Times for Schwarzenegger Stories, the paper struggles to report the damage done to its reputation over the past three days while at the same time offering a lengthy apologia from editor John Carroll. Andrew Sullivan has described the Times as a “Smear Machine,” columnist and former Times reporter Jill Stewart labeled their recent stories on Schwarzenegger as “hit pieces” and the Times’ recent actions as “journalistic malpractice,” and Susan Estrich used space on Friday’s op-ed page to berate the paper for doing damage to women with legitimate charges of abuse. On my radio program Friday, Morton Kondracke expressed surprise and disapproval of Carroll’s decisions in the run-up to Tuesday’s campaign (Carroll used to be Kondracke’s White House colleague).