Citing the "clear and present danger" of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna
Huffington has sounded the alarm on the Republican threat to what remains of
democracy in California. By withdrawing her own candidacy to work against the
gubernatorial recall, she's done it with class and savvy.
Gone are the days when activists can dismiss a Hollywood macho man as a mere
side show. That lesson has been driven home by the "compassionate
conservatism" of the "Texas lightweight" now in the White House.
In 2000, the United States was an apparently stable democracy. The government
was fiscally sound. The Bill of Rights was still in tact. Eight years of
relative peace and prosperity lulled much of the nation, including the left, into
complacency. After all, it had removed Nixon and survived Reagan/Bush I,
albeit at great cost. But there had been light at the end of the tunnel.
No more. There is no visible life after Bush-Cheney-Rove. The Bill of Rights
is shredded. The economy is shot. The ecology is under total attack. From
rigged voting machines to manipulated voter rolls to ghastly detention camps and a
Soviet media, America today evokes images of Germany in 1934.
Arnold is just another panzer in the Bush blitzkrieg. A bought media fawns
over his every move. His total lack of preparation for running an actual
government is stunning. His recent call to abolish California Environmental
Protection Agency shows exactly where he's headed. So does his chief advisor, ex-Gov.
Pete Wilson, prime author of the electric deregulation bill that devastated
California's economy and is at the root of its budget crisis.
Most amazing is the hype that Schwarzenegger's recent debate performance was
somehow passable. While spewing scripted movie lines as if they were actual
policy pronouncements, Schwarzenegger assaulted Huffington in base, sexist
terms. Had Bill Clinton said anything vaguely similar he'd've been utterly gutted
by the Foxist media.
By telling Huffington he had "a part for her" in his next movie,
Schwarzenegger recalled films in which he stuffed a woman's head in a toilet while,
backstage, he allegedly groped a co-star married to the film's director.
Huffington was right to take offense, and to now focus on terminating this
Manchurian candidate. Schwarzenegger has been programmed by Karl Rove and the
Bush White House to further destabilize California, to strip its voter rolls of
suspected Democrats and to deliver the state to the Republicans in 2004. He
would govern from Sacramento exactly as Bush governs from Washington.
There are signs the juggernaut is crumbling. The charges that Karl Rove
committed a felony and national security breach by outing the CIA agent wife of
Ambassador Joseph Wilson are extremely serious. The Ashcroft "Justice" Department
will clearly whitewash the case, and has already given Rove time to destroy
key documents. But the heinous, sloppy crime bodes ill for the man who serves
as Bush's brain.
The Rove-DeLay coup aimed at gutting the Texas Congressional delegation is
also running into trouble at the besieged state legislature, and among outraged
Texas taxpayers being stuck with yet another big tab for a Bush fiasco.
But make no mistake: the Republican assault on American democracy would get a
huge boost by taking the California state house. Their latest media front
man's truest talent is making a deadly serious political assault seem like a
circus side show.
Lets hope Arianna Huffington's outing of Arnold helps terminate his political
career before another Reichstag goes up in flames.
HARVEY WASSERMAN is author of HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
and co-author (with Bob Fitrakis) of THE SUPER-POWER OF PEACE v. BUSH ET.
AL., soon available via
www.freepress.org.
