Governor Arnold, you once valiantly fought for reform propositions, defeated by special interests. Lately, it's been difficult to say where you stand from a conservative standpoint. California continued to live beyond its means during your tenure, gambling that corporate taxes and investment income and gains would continue to rise. The time to worry about a $42B deficit is before you find yourself in a nasty recession. Welcoming an opportunity for your state to suck even harder at the federal teat instead of taking full responsibility for the state's own lack of discipline in spending is abandoning any pretense of fiscal conservatism.
Volunteering to take federal money other GOP governors turn down because of the federal strings attached? Transferring the results of chronic Democratic-sponsored California overspending onto the backs of American children and grandchildren is nothing to be proud about, Governor.
Sean Penn Winning "Best Actor" Oscar. I do not underestimate Sean Penn's considerable talent and versatility on a movie set. But let's get real: The real motive behind his victory playing the role of a gay rights pioneer has to do with the political correctness of the movie's cause. This has all to do with virulent liberal reaction to the passage of Proposition 8, which restored the traditional definition of marriage to the California constitution after the 2000 amendment was reversed by activist judicial fiat, despite the existence of a comparable domestic partnership law, protecting legal rights of gay partners. You would have thought that the heavy saturation of constant propaganda from the Hollywood liberal elite portraying gays in a sympathetic light (e.g., the long-running sitcom "Will and Grace" and highly-rated cable series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", prominent gay roles on several Disney-owned ABC-TV shows (e.g., "Brothers & Sisters", "Grey's Anatomy", and "Desperate Housewives"), movies (i.e., "Brokeback Mountain"), and veteran TV hosts (Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell)) that Hollywood would be saying by now "been there, done that", never mention the repetitious grotesque caricature of traditional value Americans as bigoted simpletons. Those same self-righteous liberals who demand tolerance failed to practice the same when they personally attacked pastor Rick Warren, whom respectfully disagrees with them.
By all accounts, Mickey Rourke's compelling performance as a washed-up pro wrestler with serious health issues, trying to reconcile with his estranged daughter, coming out of retirement at risk of his life to challenge his nemesis in the ring one last time, was the heavy favorite, winning every major award (including the Golden Globe), leading up to the Oscars. Normally Hollywood loves and rewards these concepts and performances.
If there's anything worse than Sean Penn, the moral icon best known for his felony domestic assault charge with regards to his first wife, pop singer Madonna, robbing Mickey Rouke of the Best Actor Oscar, it's having to listen to his boorish liberal rants, calling traditional values people "shameful" and being "very, very proud" to live in a country "willing to elect an elegant man President". His lionizing Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and the leadership in Iran tells you everything you need to know about his priorities. Sean should stick to doing what he does best--reading lines written by other people and interpreting fictional characters; he does a far less compelling job representing himself and his fringe politics.
