By Ron Scott Smith
■They held the great debate over the fate of California last night and a nation was glued to the tube because debating is as good as... well, you know the rest. But just in case you missed it, Arnold was on the Oprah show last week, and let slip this gem before his wife could reach over and cover his mouth with her hand: “A pump is better than coming,” Schwarzenegger said. I know — this is a family newspaper — but if Oprah could leave it in so can we. And something tells me that our likely next governor hasn’t been with the right woman — no disrespect intended, Maria. Either that or I haven’t been with the right barbell. ■What if they held a debate and nobody came? Nobody but the actor, that is. Right there in Sacramento last night we were almost treated to a theater of the absurd — a stage set with four empty chairs and one fully occupied by the ex- Mr. Universe, as journalists from around the state would throw softball, pre-scripted questions submitted to the candidates and pre-answered by his crack staff. The other four participants — Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, Sen. Tom McClintock, R- Thousand Oaks; Green Party candidate Peter Camejo and the straw that stirs the drink, Arianna Huffington — had talked about shunning this event like Schwarzenegger has shunned all the previous ones. They would stand outside the auditorium and continue their unscripted wrangling over the issues, while he sat inside alone and spewed forth his well-rehearsed lines. “In the middle of a crisis there is no script,” Bustamente had said in proposing the boycott. But, too bad, the gang was all there. They relented and joined the actor inside, depriving us of what would have been a memorable TV moment.
“If you want to change California, then join me,” implores Arnold, hundreds of times a day in a TV ad, but does anyone have a clue yet as to how he’d change it? A “fabulous job for everybody,” is one thing he’s promised, so the man must have some serious abracadabra up his sleeve. McClintock, the real deal Republican, who is dissed by his gutless party regulars as not much more than a burr in Scwarzenegger’s side, says this in his ads over a backdrop of syrupy violin swells: “We can get back the California we once knew and loved.”
Well thanks, but no thanks guys. No going backward. California’s going to be just fine without you running it. That’s why Davis was “recalled” to office for a second term a mere nine months ago by many more millions of voters than signed those petitions. They keep talking the deficit talk but they don’t walk the walk, knowing full well that a huge chunk of it was brought on by Bush’s snake-oil salesmen buddies from Enron and Dynegy, and if a deficit is reason enough to boot a guy out of office, then 45 other governors in this nation are gone too. Not to mention, of course, the guy in Washington running up the mother of all deficits, the biggest in U.S. history — some $460 billion and counting. What’s fair is fair. Recall the goose, recall the gander. ■The president rediscovered the “compassionate” in the “conservative” on Monday when he asked Congress for more than $20 billion to invest in infrastructure and the unemployment crisis. Finally. He wants, among other things, $2.9 billion to rebuild the country’s damaged and out-dated electrical system, $100 million to build 3,500 housing units for the homeless, $150 million to hire and train 2,000 border police, $150 million to build children’s hospitals for countless sick, needy and uninsured kids. And the list goes on. Now if we can just get him to do something here at home, too. You got it — the nation whose infrastructure and unemployment he wants to invest in is Iraq, the reluctant new addition to our American family. And nobody is sure yet whether they’re ever going to like the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving. ■Iraq. You roll. It continues to be his object of obsession. The central front of the war on terror, blah blah blah. There he was Tuesday standing before the full body of the United Nations — a body he ignored like they weren’t even there during his roll-up to a war they would not condone. There he was begging them for help now. Any kind of help, if you please, fellow nations, gentle nations. This peacetime in Baghdad that we brought you is a tough solo gig. ■Tough enough that even one of America’s super-patriot country singers, Toby Keith, is having second thoughts. And if guys like him are having second thoughts, Bush may be in a world of trouble. He’s of the “we’ll put a boot in your ass” fame from his war-mongering mega-hit, “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,” and the object of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines’ T-shirt at the Grammys that said, “FUTK,” and you solve the puzzle. Toby, wisely choosing not to be one of the ones risking life and limb to put a boot up a sovereign nation’s ass, is instead out on a safer mission — singing about it. His courageous multi-million dollar tour is dubbed “Shock’n Y’all.” He told the LA Times, when asked about the bombs and the blood and the real “Shock and Awe,” “Honestly, I’m still doing the math on that. I know a tyrant is gone and all of that, but whether it was our duty to go do that, well, the math hasn’t worked out for me on it.” ■Well, here’s some convoluted math that just may work out — 250 young Americans killed (and counting) … plus 150,000 young Americans stranded far from loved ones in a living hell with no homecoming in sight (and counting) … equals 407. That’s the days left until the next presidential election. And counting. (Ron Scott Smith).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 25, 2003. Read the original PDF.