Arnold Schwarzenegger: A Brief History of a Show-Biz Republican

 
 Here's a funny thing, on this day when the Important Political Media is reporting on the separation of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Kennedy Family lady Maria "Sargent" Shriver: We like Arnold. We like Maria. We don'tknowthem, although we have long existed in that strange California zone between media, politics and celebrity where these people do their peculiar work. Ha ha, we were actually working (as a newspaper editor) for former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan, who was planning to run for governor, when Arnold announced he was running for governor, on the Jay Leno program. It is hard not to like Arnold, we hear. He is known to be pleasant and friendly -- a littletoofriendly in the past, as far as women and their boobies are concerned -- and his form of Republican Politics is positively quaint compared to the frothing imbecile demagogues of today.

Like other show people in California who became ostensibly Republican politicians (Sonny Bono, Clint Eastwood, etc.), Schwarzenegger wouldn't even qualify for the GOP primary in most of this dumb country. And he was despised by the fringe-right California GOP -- think Central Valley agribusiness and the Orange County John Birch Society. And now his political career is over and the state is in much worse financial shape than it used to be and he did nothing to make California's rich corporations (Google, anyone? Apple? Disney?) actually pay taxes and did nothing to financially inconvenience his fellow gazillionaires in Brentwood. So, he's guilty as the rest of 'em. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

But really, why divorce at 63 and 55, respectively? You've got four kids, you've got enough riches to only see each other on holidays and family vacations and college graduations and whatever, you're not going to be young and beautiful again, neither of you. There is something very gross and desperate about old famous people divorcing. Because they're obviously trying to divorcegetting old, and wouldn't it be better to just grow old with dignity? Wouldn't that be a novelty, in rich-people California of 2011? Anyway, this is just an introduction to a link to The Awl, but now the introduction is as long as the post it's linking to, the end. [ The Awl ]