For Better or Worse

[[H U H ?]] * Memories are convenient, aren’t they? Especially for politicians. In a lengthy interview with two reporters from California’s San Jose Mercury News, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked whether, as governor or as “private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger ... you’ve ever attended a gay marriage or a gay commitment ceremony--a gay or lesbian marriage or commitment ceremony?” To which Schwarzenegger, who recently promised to veto a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the Golden State, replied:

“I can’t remember.”

Now, I have to figure that Arnold and wife Maria Shriver aren’t present at that many rituals during which either two men or pairs of women exchange partnership vows. So you’d think that such anomalies would stand out, right? They certainly would for you or me. But then, I guess the Governator just doesn’t have the recall he should, or maybe the courage he ought, to speak honestly about subjects that might get him into hot water with his rapidly dwindling supporter base. Schwarzenegger even tried, late in the Mercury News interview, to make a virtue out of his stumblings and dubious statements, such as this one. “I don’t work like a politician,” he insisted. Gee, you could’ve fooled me.

ADDENDUM: Capitol Weekly, which describes itself as “the newspaper of California government and politics,” has posted an editorial in which it tells (among other things) that Schwarzenegger is locked in a “running feud” with the Los Angeles Times over that daily’s recent “coverage of the governor’s contract with American Media Inc.” Regular Limbo readers will remember my note from August about the Times revealing how AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer, promised $20,000 in “hush-money” to a woman who’d allegedly had a seven-year affair with the married Schwarzenegger. It followed up with news that during California’s 2003 gubernatorial recall campaign, AMI “tried to suppress a risqué 1983 Playboy video starring the future governor.” For an action star, Arnold seems to have awfully thin skin. Almost like one of those “girlie men” he’s always deriding.