Concerns about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Republican bona fides
were quickly laid to rest with new revelations of his Nazi Party
connections.
Stormy trooper Katie Couric led the blitzkrieg, smearing as if
signaling she’s prepared to give the man a full body massage. She
rattled off marijuana in his past, steroids, a father suspected of
war crimes, sexual harassment charges and even signs he’s
“committed infidelity.” Boy, that bird can sing. Bringing up the
rear in his arc, Tim Noah, reminded the world of Kurt Waldheim’s
role in the pairing of Arnold and his bride Maria Shriver (who, it
should be noted, shares a first name with the lead of The Sound
of Music, Austria’s Oklahoma! and former UN Secretary
General Waldheim’s favorite musical, at least up to the point where
the Nazis start losing). But more importantly for the purpose of
Arnold’s Republican identity, he’s now managed to do what all
GOPers have so far been unsuccessful in doing and that is to get
liberal TV reporter Shriver off the air. If there are any regrets
regarding Arnold’s past it’s that he didn’t marry Katie Couric.
Democrats sure could use a friend like Kurt Waldheim. Term
limits was once their big worry. Now they sense the Terminator has
limited them. They thought it a huge injustice Gray Davis was being
limited to less than two terms. They were going to correct the
outrage, and to nationalize the California recall as an example of
Republican beerhall putsch tendencies. Davis traveled to Chicago to
secure backing of Big Labor’s Capones. Bill Clinton and Lady
Clinton were poised to handle the rest. Dianne Feinstein did her
part by announcing she won’t run. The rest isn’t her story.
Arnold announced, and Democrat unity disappeared beneath the San
Andreas fault. Now key Democrats are running to replace Davis, or
denouncing him, or zipping their lips and throwing away the key.
The courts haven’t cooperated. The recall law is crystal clear, so
naturally the Dems expected a judge would find it unacceptable. No
such luck. Davis wanted to appear on both parts of the ballot, in
effect to allow himself to be defeated and reelected in one swoop.
Sorry, bud. A major effort was made to postpone the election, on
the grounds that two months won’t allow for a real campaign. Those
who now call the recall window untenable used to complain about the
excessive length of American campaigns and contend we should model
ourselves on European parliamentary campaigns which last something
like six weeks tops. Here’s the reformers’ chance and they go
wobbly!
Democrats are being taught an unprecedented lesson: if your man
has ratings somewhere in the low twenties and most voters long ago
wrote him off as insufferable, it’s not surprising that an all-out
effort to save his skin will go nowhere. It will even backfire,
dragging down those who refused to face the situation honestly.
Then again, Davis’s real mistake was in inviting the Clintons in
while snubbing the real leader of the Democratic Party. So as
California was left to burn Al Gore wowed them in New York City.
Invoking standards over which he had no controlling legal
authority, the former Gore accused the Bush presidency of total
disregard of “honor and integrity” in its policies and persona. He
denounced Bush’s Iraq policies from A to Z and back to A again,
then added for good measure: “The removal of Saddam from power is a
positive accomplishment in its own right for which the President
deserves credit.” Not even Howard Dean would be so fair-minded,
though let there be no mistaking it: Al Gore on Thursday announced
he’s back in presidential contention, and this time he intends to
run to the left of the left, the Bobby Kennedy to Dean’s Gene
McCarthy.
Al is so ahead of the curve it’s frightening. Following in the
steps of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in violation of the oath
she swore now openly boasts of using trendy foreign laws as models
for her rulings, Gore went out of his way to denounce Bush policy
on the basis of what was said in Germany to a German publication.
In his speech he cited Nobel Prize winning economist George Akerlof
telling Der Spiegel “last week in Germany” that Bush’s “is
the worst government the U.S. has ever had in its more than 200
years of history” and his policies are “a form of looting.” (Nice
touch, that, given German understanding of “looting.”) Gore’s
intent was clear: to make it appear that Akerlof is a German so as
to strengthen the charge made against a lowly unilateralist
American regime. In fact, Akerlof is American born and he’s an
economist at UC Berkeley. Even better, which Al also withheld, Mrs.
Akerlof worked for Bill Clinton. In other words, what we have here
with Herr Professor Akerlof is the male equivalent of a Dixie
Chick. From now on we won’t listen to his music. In 2001 he shared
his Nobel Prize with two economists. This week he shares his Enemy
of the Week prize with Al Gore and Katie Couric. Long may they
loot.
