Record­ed Jan­u­aery 23, 2005
REALAUDIO

Catch­ing up on the guber­na­to­r­i­al admin­is­tra­tion of Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger, this pro­gram details the Machi­avel­lian hypocrisy of Schwarzenegger’s term. (For more about Schwarzeneg­ger, see—among oth­er pro­grams—FTR#’s 421, 422, 429, 434, 436, 440, 492.) In par­tic­u­lar, the broad­cast reviews Mr. Emory’s prog­nos­ti­ca­tions from late August of 2003 (when Schwarzeneg­ger was run­ning for Gov­er­nor.) In that pro­gram, Mr. Emory not­ed that—throughout his body­build­ing career—Schwarzenegger would prac­tice a Machi­avel­lian form of psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare, in which he would pre­tend to be going in one direc­tion and then reverse his field. As gov­er­nor, Schwarzeneg­ger has behaved in exact­ly the same fash­ion. He has “flip-flopped” in a con­sum­mate­ly cyn­i­cal man­ner, doing things he promised he wouldn’t do and not doing things that he had promised to do. Par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy is Schwarzenegger’s unpar­al­leled cod­dling of the very spe­cial inter­ests he promised to shun. Schwarzeneg­ger is also posi­tion­ing him­self as some­thing of an Amer­i­can Fuhrer, cen­tral­iz­ing pow­er in the governor’s office and mov­ing to become a dic­ta­tor of sorts. Exem­pli­fy­ing Schwarzenegger’s hypocrisy is his veto of a bill that would have severe­ly restrict­ed the sale of body-build­ing dietary sup­ple­ments; despite his pub­lic pro­nounce­ments against the use of those items. Schwarzeneg­ger prof­its from the sale of these very sup­ple­ments.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of Enron CEO Ken Lay’s solic­i­ta­tion of a Schwarzeneg­ger can­di­da­cy dur­ing California’s man­u­fac­tured ener­gy cri­sis; Schwarzenegger’s cyn­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of body-build­ing rivals Lou Fer­rig­no and Frank Zane; the cru­el prac­ti­cal jokes that “the Gropen­fuhrer” plays on his wife; Schwarzenegger’s betray­al of a cam­paign promise to resist the Bush administration’s log­ging poli­cies in Cal­i­for­nia; Schwarzenegger’s rever­sal of promis­es made to edu­ca­tors; Der Terminator’s betray­al of a cam­paign promise not to finance state gov­ern­ment by bor­row­ing; Schwarzenegger’s record fund-rais­ing from the very “spe­cial inter­ests” that he pre­tends to oppose; the Gropenfuhrer’s cozy rela­tion­ship with Chevron­Tex­a­co Cor­po­ra­tion; Schwarzenegger’s dis­missal of a num­ber of con­sumer advo­cates.

1. The first part of the pro­gram reviews infor­ma­tion from FTR#422. When run­ning for gov­er­nor, Schwarzeneg­ger promised that he would resist con­trol by the “spe­cial inter­ests” and that he would pro­vide open, fis­cal­ly respon­si­ble gov­ern­ment. As not­ed in FTR#422, the very gen­e­sis of Schwarzenegger’s polit­i­cal can­di­da­cy was at the behest of the “spe­cial inter­ests.” In FTR#422, Mr. Emory not­ed that Schwarzeneg­ger is a delib­er­ate, Machi­avel­lian liar and manip­u­la­tor. He is adept at lead­ing peo­ple in one direc­tion and then stick­ing it to them by doing the oppo­site of what he led them to believe he would do. His meet­ing with Ken Lay and Michael Milken is typ­i­cal of Schwarzenegger’s per­son­al­i­ty and eth­ic. Among the most reveal­ing and cyn­i­cal of Schwarzenegger’s net­work­ing moves is his pow­wow with Ken­neth Lay, the CEO of Enron dur­ing the very time peri­od that Enron was help­ing to desta­bi­lize Cal­i­for­nia with the delib­er­ate­ly-con­struct­ed “Ener­gy Cri­sis.” (For more about the desta­bi­liza­tion of Cal­i­for­nia and the pho­ny ener­gy cri­sis, see FTR#’s 280, 420.) This puts Schwarzeneg­ger “right smack dab in the mid­dle” of these shenani­gans. In FTR#429, we not­ed that as soon as Schwarzeneg­ger was elect­ed, he agreed to set­tle the law­suits by Cruz Bus­ta­mente for pen­nies on the dol­lar, there­by ful­fill­ing his man­date from the spe­cial inter­ests. “Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger isn’t talk­ing. The Hol­ly­wood action film star and California’s GOP guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date in the state’s recall elec­tion has been unusu­al­ly silent about his plans for run­ning the Gold­en State. He hasn’t yet offered up a solu­tion for the state’s $38 bil­lion bud­get deficit, an issue that large­ly got more than one mil­lion peo­ple to sign a peti­tion to recall Gov. Gray Davis. More impor­tant, how­ev­er, Schwarzeneg­ger still won’t respond to ques­tions about why he was at the Penin­su­la Hotel in Bev­er­ly Hills two years ago where he, for­mer Los Ange­les May­or Richard Rior­dan and junk bond king Michael Milken, met secret­ly with for­mer Enron Chair­man Ken­neth Lay, who was tout­ing a plan for solv­ing the state’s ener­gy cri­sis.”
(“Ahnuld, Ken Lay, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Gray Davis” by Jason Leopold; CommonDreams.org; 8/17/2003; p. 1.)

2. “While Schwarzeneg­ger, Rior­dan and Milken lis­tened to Lay’s pitch, Gov. Davis plead­ed with pres­i­dent George Bush to enact much need­ed price con­trols on elec­tric­i­ty sold in the state, which sky­rock­et­ed to more than $200 per megawatt-hour. Davis said that Texas-based ener­gy com­pa­nies were manip­u­lat­ing California’s pow­er mar­ket, charg­ing obscene prices for pow­er and hold­ing con­sumers hostage. Bush agreed to meet with Davis at the Cen­tu­ry Plaza Hotel in West Los Ange­les on May 29, 2001, five days after Lay met with Schwarzeneg­ger, to dis­cuss the Cal­i­for­nia pow­er cri­sis.” (Idem.)

3. “At the meet­ing, Davis asked Bush for fed­er­al assis­tance, such as impos­ing fed­er­al­ly man­dat­ed price caps, to rein in soar­ing ener­gy prices. But Bush refused say­ing Cal­i­for­nia leg­is­la­tors designed an elec­tric­i­ty mar­ket that left too many reg­u­la­to­ry restric­tions in place and that’s what caused elec­tric­i­ty prices in the state to sky­rock­et. It was up to the gov­er­nor to fix the prob­lem, Bush said. How­ev­er, Bush’s response appears to be part of a coor­di­nat­ed effort launched by Lay to have Davis shoul­der the blame for the cri­sis. It worked. Accord­ing to recent polls, a major­i­ty of vot­ers grew increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed with the way Davis han­dled the pow­er cri­sis. Schwarzeneg­ger has used the ener­gy cri­sis and mis­steps by Davis to bol­ster his stand­ing with poten­tial vot­ers. While Davis took a beat­ing in the press (some ener­gy com­pa­nies ran attack ads against the gov­er­nor), Lay used his polit­i­cal clout to gath­er sup­port for dereg­u­la­tion.” (Idem.)

4. “A cou­ple of weeks before Lay met with Schwarzeneg­ger in may 2001, the PBS news pro­gram ‘Front­line’ inter­viewed Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney, whom Lay met with pri­vate­ly a month ear­li­er. Cheney was asked by a cor­re­spon­dent from Front­line whether ener­gy com­pa­nies were act­ing like a car­tel and using manip­u­la­tive tac­tics to cause elec­tric­i­ty prices to spike in Cal­i­for­nia.” (Idem.)

5. “ ‘No,’ Cheney said dur­ing the Front­line inter­view. ‘The prob­lem you had in Cal­i­for­nia was caused by a com­bi­na­tion of things—an unwise reg­u­la­to­ry scheme, because they didn’t real­ly dereg­u­late. Now they’re trapped from unwise reg­u­la­to­ry schemes, plus not hav­ing addressed the sup­ply side of the issue. They’ve obvi­ous­ly cre­at­ed major prob­lems for them­selves and bank­rupt­ed PG & E in the process.’” (Idem.)

6. “The 90-minute secret meet­ing Lay con­vened took place inside a con­fer­ence room at the Penin­su­la Hotel. Lay, and oth­er Enron rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the meet­ing, hand­ed out a four-page doc­u­ment to Schwarzeneg­ger, Rior­dan and Milken titled ‘Com­pre­hen­sive Solu­tion for Cal­i­for­nia,’ which called for an end to fed­er­al and state inves­ti­ga­tions into Enron’s role in the Cal­i­for­nia ener­gy cri­sis and said con­sumers should pay for the state’s dis­as­trous exper­i­ment with dereg­u­la­tion through multi­bil­lion rate increas­es. Anoth­er bul­let point in the four-page doc­u­ment said ‘Get dereg­ul

ation right this time—California needs a real elec­tric­i­ty mar­ket, not gov­ern­ment takeovers.” (Ibid; p. 2.)

7. “The irony of that state­ment is that California’s flawed pow­er mar­ket design helped Enron earn more than $500 mil­lion in one year, a ten­fold increase in prof­its from a pre­vi­ous year and it’s coor­di­nat­ed effort in manip­u­lat­ing the price of elec­tric­i­ty in Cal­i­for­nia, which oth­er pow­er com­pa­nies mim­ic­ked, cost the state close to $70 bil­lion and led to the begin­ning of what is now the state’s $38 bil­lion bud­get deficit. The pow­er cri­sis forced dozens of busi­ness­es to close down or move to oth­er states, where cheap­er elec­tric­i­ty was in abun­dant sup­ply, and great­ly reduced the rev­enue Cal­i­for­nia relied heav­i­ly upon.” (Idem.)

8. “Lay asked the par­tic­i­pants to sup­port his plan and lob­by the state leg­is­la­ture to make it a law. It’s unclear whether Schwarzeneg­ger held a stake in Enron at the time or if he fol­lowed through on Lay’s request. His Spokesman Rob Stutz­man hasn’t returned numer­ous calls for com­ment about the meet­ing. For Schwarzeneg­ger and the oth­ers who attend­ed the meet­ing, asso­ci­at­ing with Enron, par­tic­u­lar­ly Ken Lay, the dis­graced chair­man of the high-fly­ing ener­gy com­pa­ny, dur­ing the peak of California’s pow­er cri­sis in May 2001 could be com­pared to meet­ing with Osama bin Laden after 9–11 to under­stand why ter­ror­ism isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly such a heinous act. A per­son who attend­ed the meet­ing at the Penin­su­la, which this reporter wrote about two years ago said Lay invit­ed Schwarzeneg­ger and Rior­dan because the two were being court­ed in 2001 as GOP guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates.” (Idem.)

9. If one were to describe Schwarzenegger’s per­son­al­i­ty in one word, it would be Machi­avel­lian. He has giv­en abun­dant evi­dence of this, even dur­ing his body­build­ing days. His sig­na­ture cin­e­mat­ic effort, “Pump­ing Iron,” show­cased his cyn­i­cism. “The gen­uine­ly creepy moments [in “Pump­ing Iron”] come two-thirds in. In one scene, he brags about miss­ing his father’s funer­al in order to train for a com­pe­ti­tion. Talk­ing about his chief rival, Lou Fer­rig­no (who went on to become TV’s ‘Incred­i­ble Hulk’), Schwarzeneg­ger tells the doc­u­men­tary cam­era, ‘It doesn’t mat­ter if he’s in shape or out of shape.’ He plans on mess­ing with his mind. ‘I will mix him up. He will come so ready, but the next morn­ing, he will be ready to lose.’ Of this form of psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion, he says, ‘All these things are avail­able, and so if they’re avail­able, you might as well use them.’ He smiles, and at this point he looks down­right sin­is­ter.”
(“Film Probes Beyond Mus­cles” by Mick LaSalle; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 8/15/2003; p. D17.)

10. “The movie shows him putting his strat­e­gy to work on the morn­ing of the com­pe­ti­tion. He has break­fast with Fer­rig­no and Ferrigno’s par­ents and sub­tly under­mines his friend’s con­fi­dence. Behind a mask of affa­bil­i­ty, he says that Fer­rig­no, who is huge, would have had a bet­ter chance of win­ning with anoth­er month’s train­ing (‘A month from now would be per­fect for you’). He asks Fer­rig­no, ‘You look kind of wor­ried today.’ He con­soles Fer­rig­no in advance for los­ing. Final­ly, he gets up from the table and tells Ferrigno’s father, ‘Help him pump up. Calm him down.’ By the end of break­fast, poor Fer­rig­no looks tied up in a psy­cho­log­i­cal knot. At the com­pe­ti­tion, we see him pos­ing as though apolo­getic about his body, when he could have just as eas­i­ly won.” (Idem.)

11. “Even after the com­pe­ti­tion, Schwarzenegger—clearly hav­ing fun—continues his bar­rage, rid­ing on a bus with Fer­rig­no and his folks, talk­ing about how he plans to come to New York, eat spaghet­ti and date Ferrigno’s sis­ter. Everything’s said with a smile, but the whole time he seems to be laugh­ing at this guile­less, sweet fam­i­ly. Frankly, it’s almost sick­en­ing. ‘I was always dream­ing about very pow­er­ful people—dictators and things like that,’ Schwarzeneg­ger says of his child­hood ear­ly in the film. ‘Pump­ing Iron’ makes it plain that this is one fel­low who had the will to pow­er at an ear­ly age.” (Idem.)

12. Equal­ly reveal­ing of Schwarzenegger’s char­ac­ter is his Machi­avel­lian, cyn­i­cal behav­ior toward Frank Zane, one of his suc­ces­sors as Mr. Olympia. “In August 1980, Arnold, now known in the body­build­ing com­mu­ni­ty chiefly as CBS com­men­ta­tor and, along with Jim Lorimer, pro­duc­er of body­build­ing shows, attend­ed the Miss Olympia con­test at the Philadel­phia Sher­a­ton. Rick Wayne, there to cov­er the show for a [Joe] Wieder mag­a­zine, inter­viewed Arnold after­ward. Casu­al­ly, Rick asked Arnold, who had now been retired from body­build­ing for five years, if he would ever con­sid­er mak­ing a come­back. ‘No,’ Arnold said firm­ly. ‘No amount of mon­ey could tempt me out of retire­ment.’ The only rea­son he had been train­ing, he told Rick, was that he was rehears­ing for his part as body­builder Mick­ey Har­gi­tay in the upcom­ing The Jayne Mans­field Sto­ry. As an aside he men­tioned that he was plan­ning to be in Aus­tralia for the 1980 Mr. Olympia con­test, hav­ing just been signed by CBS as com­men­ta­tor for the event. Rick, end­ing the inter­view, believed every word that Arnold had said.”
(Arnold: The Unau­tho­rized Biog­ra­phy; by Wendy Leigh; Copy­right 1990 by Wendy Leigh; Con­g­don & Weed [HC]; ISBN 0–86553-216–8; pp. 178–179.)

13. “Mean­while, back on the West Coast, the reign­ing Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane, had suf­fered a severe set­back. Eight weeks before the con­test in which he expect­ed to win his fourth Mr. Olympia title, Frank met with a ter­ri­ble acci­dent that almost killed him. After a spell in the hos­pi­tal, on the verge of with­draw­ing from the con­test, Frank approached Arnold and asked his advice. The acci­dent, he said, had weak­ened him, inter­rupt­ed his train­ing, and left its mark. Should he still com­pete in the 1980 Mr. Olympia or back out of the whole thing? Arnold, whom Frank habit­u­al­ly viewed as a friend and coach, thought for a moment, then said that he strong­ly believed that Frank should go to Aus­tralia and defend his Mr. Olympia title. As an after­thought, Frank, a man who is nobody’s fool and had been Arnold’s friend for more than twelve years, casu­al­ly asked him if he planned to com­pete. No, said Arnold. He was going to Aus­tralia to do com­men­tary on the Olympia for CBS—that was all.” (Ibid.; p. 179.)

14. “Two weeks before the 1980 Mr. Olympia, Arnold fell ill, los­ing ten pounds. That didn’t deter him from giv­ing an inter­view to Aus­tri­an jour­nal­ist Roman Schliess­er, who wrote about Arnold on a reg­u­lar basis in his col­umn ‘Adabei’ for the Vien­nese paper Die Kro­nen Zeitung. And if [Schwarzeneg­ger rival Mike] Mentzer, Zane, et al, had sub­scribed to Die Kro­nen Zeitung and had been for­tu­nate enough to under­stand Ger­man, they would not have been at all sur­prised by the events that took place sub­se­quent­ly in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. For Arnold had quite open­ly revealed to Schliess­er, ‘On Octo­ber 4th the next Mr. Olympia will be cho­sen in Syd­ney. I’m a sports com­men­ta­tor for CBS tele­vi­sion. But I’m doing it. I’ve trained for six weeks. . . . I’m against Frank Zane who was Mr. Olympia three times, but they will all cry when I win again.’ Schliesser’s arti­cle was pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 28th, just six days before Arnold dropped his bomb­shell on the 1980 Mr. Olympia con­test.” (Ibid.; pp. 180–181.)

15. “The night before the con­test Boy­er Coe dis­cov­ered that Arnold was plan­ning to make a come­back. After watch­ing Arnold strip down, he took Frank Zane aside and, with a degree of con­cern for Arnold, won­dered out loud, ‘Why is Arnold doing this to hims

elf? He doesn’t have a prayer.’ Not only had he been out of com­pe­ti­tion for the past five years; body­build­ing had also changed. In Arnold’s day only three or four oth­er body­builders had come close to approach­ing his stan­dard. Now there were many. More­over, the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion was far high­er and the bodybuilder’s rou­tines were less hap­haz­ard and more chore­o­graphed. Lat­er that night Arnold approached Zane and asked if he want­ed to share a dress­ing room with him. Frank replied, “Arnold, are you try­ing to psych me out?’ ‘Oh, no,’ replied Arnold. ‘I wouldn’t try and do that.’” (Ibid.; pp. 182–183.)

16. “Frank Zane was Arnold’s next tar­get. A year lat­er Arnold described his tac­tics in an inter­view: ‘I knew Frank Zane would be tense at the moment of the com­pe­ti­tion, because he hadn’t laughed once in the last six weeks. So if I could crack him up with a good joke, all the laugh­ter that he had stored would come out in a tor­rent. So I pre­pared a joke and told it to him dur­ing the pre­judg­ing. He cracked up so much that he leaned back and bent over. And of course the judges are always look­ing and mak­ing notes. They prob­a­bly thought, ‘He is not tak­ing this seri­ous­ly.’ After five years away from com­pe­ti­tion it was won­der­ful to use psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare again.’” (Ibid.; p. 183.)

17. “In inter­views filmed for The Come­back, con­duct­ed before and dur­ing the con­test, Arnold would allege that he was inse­cure about step­ping on stage for the first time in five years. But as he began to pose to the strains of ‘Exo­dus,’ he enthused that noth­ing had changed. Wait­ing for the results, he was exul­tant: over­flow­ing with enthu­si­asm and self-con­fi­dence, impa­tient to hear the out­come of the 1980 Mr. Olympia, con­vinced that he had won. As Dan Howard, one of the 1980 judges, says, ‘Arnold beats peo­ple before they go onstage.’ He was right. Although Arnold had trained for only eight weeks, while all the oth­er con­tes­tants had trained for a year, he was nev­er­the­less declared the 1980 Mr. Olympia. The audi­ence went wild. Though not in the way to which Arnold was accus­tomed.” (Ibid.; pp. 183–184.)

18. “Paul Gra­ham, exec­u­tive pro­duc­er of The Come­back, with the help of film edi­tor Geoff Ben­nett, didn’t include in the film’s sound track the sub­se­quent erup­tion that greet­ed the announce­ment of the 1980 Olympia win­ner. In the words of an eye­wit­ness, ‘The audi­ence was furi­ous, throw­ing things, swear­ing. A great cho­rus of ‘Rigged, rigged, rigged’ flared up. There’s nev­er been any­thing like it in any body­build­ing con­test ever. Every­one in the place was boo­ing Arnold, shout­ing ‘bull­shit,’ and brawl­ing in dis­gust. Arnold was enraged and went red in the face.’” (Ibid.; p. 184.)

19. After the hos­tile reac­tion of the crowd, Schwarzeneg­ger evi­denced the bru­tal, degrad­ing behav­ior toward Maria Shriv­er that we will exam­ine at greater length at the end of the pro­gram. “Seething with anger, Arnold stormed out of the Syd­ney Opera House with a group of reporters in hot pur­suit. Almost run­ning toward the exit, he avoid­ed answer­ing their ques­tions, toss­ing his head in a com­bi­na­tion of anger and dis­dain. Close to the exit, he sud­den­ly real­ized that Maria, far from being by his side, was talk­ing to some reporters behind him. Accord­ing to Hel­mut Cern­cic, at the top of his voice Arnold screamed, ‘You stu­pid bitch, I’m wait­ing for you. Come here.’ Wit­ness­ing the scene, Hel­mut, who had known Arnold since he was a teenage mis­fit all those years ago in the Ath­let­ic Union, thought to him­self, ‘This boy from Aus­tria, who nev­er had a pen­ny, couldn’t speak Eng­lish, now knows some­one from the Kennedy fam­i­ly and speaks to her like that. It was amaz­ing.’” (Idem.)

20. Schwarzenegger’s vic­to­ry may not have been the result of objec­tive view­points on the part of the judges. “Among the more seri­ous alle­ga­tions was the one claim­ing that all the judges of the 1980 Mr. Olympia either were Arnold’s friends or had busi­ness rela­tion­ships with him. And although no one accused the IFBB of hav­ing fixed the con­test in Arnold’s favor, it seemed as if the judges had had eyes only for him.” (Ibid.; p. 185.)

21. The bal­ance of the broad­cast sets forth Schwarzenegger’s pre­dictably cyn­i­cal, hyp­o­crit­i­cal con­duct as gov­er­nor. Just as Mr. Emory had fore­cast in FTR#422, Schwarzeneg­ger has treat­ed the peo­ple of Cal­i­for­nia in the same man­ner he had treat­ed Lou Fer­rig­no and Frank Zane. After promis­ing not to favor the spe­cial inter­ests and vow­ing to run a trans­par­ent admin­is­tra­tion, Schwarzeneg­ger is awash in spe­cial inter­est mon­ey and is run­ning a secre­tive, opaque gov­ern­ment. “ . . . Where Schwarzeneg­ger has not even begun to change ‘the polit­i­cal cli­mate of our state,’ as he promised a year ago, is in spe­cial-inter­est mon­ey in Sacra­men­to. He’s swim­ming in the ocean of it, just like his pre­de­ces­sors and the Leg­is­la­ture. Nor has he run gov­ern­ment with the win­dows and doors open, as he vowed to do. Only this week, did he promise to release his cal­en­dar so the pub­lic could see who has been meet­ing with him. . .”
(“A Sol­id Term so far, but Still Incom­plete”; San Jose Mer­cury News; 11/17/2004; p. 6B.)

22. Pre­dictably, Schwarzeneg­ger is break­ing promis­es made on a num­ber of impor­tant issues: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s suc­cess dur­ing his first year relied on cut­ting deals and shar­ing the stage with unlike­ly allies. But after his State of the State speech sound­ed like an expi­ra­tion notice on many of those agree­ments, one­time allies are left won­der­ing, how good is the governor’s word? Nego­tia­tors who reached com­pro­mis­es with Schwarzeneg­ger over pub­lic schools, retire­ment ben­e­fits for state work­ers and a bal­anced bud­get amend­ment say they are now wary of work­ing with the gov­er­nor as they head into bud­get talks this week.”
(“Gov­er­nor Dumps Deals, Cre­ates Mis­trust” by Ann E. Mari­mow; San Jose Mer­cury News; 1/9/2005; p. 1A.)

23. “ ‘It’s not cred­i­ble when you walk away from an agree­ment that’s bare­ly a year old,’ said Kevin Gor­don, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Asso­ci­a­tion of School Busi­ness Offi­cials. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 1A-17A.)

24. Hav­ing vowed not to finance the machin­ery of Cal­i­for­nia gov­ern­ment with bor­row­ing, Schwarzeneg­ger has done—surprise, surprise—just what he said he would not do. “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bud­get plan for elim­i­nat­ing an $8 bil­lion state deficit relies on sub­stan­tial bor­row­ing and fund­shift­ing that is already anger­ing local school and trans­porta­tion offi­cials. The pro­pos­al, to be released Mon­day, calls for at least $2.5 bil­lion in bor­row­ing, divert­ing trans­porta­tion funds to pay for oth­er pro­grams, and load­ing school dis­tricts with $1.1 bil­lion in bor­row­ing, divert­ing trans­porta­tion funds to pay for oth­er pro­grams, and load­ing school dis­tricts with $1.1 bil­lion in new pen­sion costs, admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials said. . . .”
(“Bud­get Pro­pos­al Boosts Debt” by Andrew LaMar; San Jose Mer­cury News; 1/7/2005; p. 1A.)

25. Schwarzeneg­ger is resort­ing to the selec­tive use of non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions to fur­ther his uti­liza­tion of spe­cial inter­est mon­ey. This is, of course, exact­ly the type of thing he said he wouldn’t do. “Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger has qui­et­ly incor­po­rat­ed a pri­vate non­prof­it group that can help advance his polit­i­cal goals with­out dis­clos­ing the source of its mon­ey. . . The new enti­ty, which received tax exempt s

tatus from the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice this week comes for­ward as the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor sets a near-record pace in fund-rais­ing. After spend­ing near­ly $27 mil­lion to win the Octo­ber recall elec­tion, Schwazeneg­ger has added $11 mil­lion since, and appears poised to raise mil­lions more before the Novem­ber elec­tion.”
(“Gov. Schwarzeneg­ger Forms Group To Raise Funds”; KFMB-TV San Diego 3/27/04.)

26. “Despite promis­es to open up gov­ern­ment and even his own cal­en­dar for pub­lic review, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts to reshape Cal­i­for­nia ben­e­fit from mil­lions of dol­lars in spend­ing by non­prof­it groups that are not required to dis­close where they get or how they spend their mon­ey. These groups have sup­port­ed some of Schwarzenegger’s most mem­o­rable events, includ­ing trade mis­sions to Tokyo and Tel Aviv, bus tours up and down the state and even the July appear­ance at a shop­ping mall in Ontario where he called Democ­rats ‘girlie men’ dur­ing the bud­get impasse. . . .”
(“Non­prof­its Tan­gle Schwarzenegger’s Fund-Rais­ing Machine” by Tom Chorneau [AP]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 11/19/2004; p. 1.)

27. As might have been pre­dict­ed, Schwarzeneg­ger is run­ning an admin­is­tra­tion that is favor­ing spe­cial inter­ests. He is not pro­tect­ing the “lit­tle peo­ple” he said he’d cham­pi­on. He has oust­ed a num­ber or pro-con­sumer activists from state gov­ern­ment. “For the third time since tak­ing office last fall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger has oust­ed a high-rank­ing state con­sumer reg­u­la­tor stir­ring com­plaints among advo­cates that he is strip­ping a respect­ed con­sumer pro­tec­tion depart­ment of its strongest voic­es.”
(“Con­sumer Activists Trou­bled by Gov.’s Fir­ings” by Peter Nicholas; Los Ange­les Times; 5/27/2004; p. 1.)

28. In char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly Machi­avel­lian style, Schwarzeneg­ger has reversed a promise to resist the Bush administration’s attempts to roll back pro­hi­bi­tions against log­ging on nation­al for­est lands. “A year ago, when he was run­ning for gov­er­nor, Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger promised to fight attempts by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to roll back a land­mark Clin­ton-era pol­i­cy that reduced log­ging on 11 mil­lion acres of nation­al forests across California’s Sier­ra Neva­da range. Yet the Bush admin­is­tra­tion killed Clinton’s Sier­ra plan last week—without a peep of protest from Schwarzeneg­ger.”
(“Log­ging Pledge Qui­et­ly Ignored: Schwarzeneg­ger Vowed to Oppose Bush Increase” by Paul Rogers; San Jose Mer­cury News; 11/24/2004; p. 1.)

29. “The gov­er­nor and his staff also did not appeal the orig­i­nal Bush deci­sion in Jan­u­ary, when 6,200 oth­er mem­bers of the pub­lic filed appeals with the U.S. For­est Ser­vice. The cam­paign promise—part of ‘Arnold’s Agen­da to Bring Cal­i­for­nia Back’—has now been removed from his web site (www.joinarnold.com). Envi­ron­men­tal­ists are incensed, charg­ing that Schwarzeneg­ger backed away from one of his cen­tral envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign promis­es, and one of the few in which the then-Repub­li­can can­di­date direct­ly dis­agreed with the Bush admin­is­tra­tion on an envi­ron­men­tal issue. . .” (Idem.)

30. Schwarzeneg­ger has scratched the back of the Chevron­Tex­a­co Corporation—another of his favored spe­cial inter­ests. “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ambi­tious to reor­ga­nize almost every aspect of state gov­ern­ment was influ­enced sig­nif­i­cant­ly by oil and gas giant Chevron­Tex­a­co Corp., which man­aged to shape such key rec­om­men­da­tions as the removal of restric­tions on oil refiner­ies. . . .”
(“Chevron Gave Big to Schwarzeneg­ger” by Tom Chorneau [AP]; yahoo.com; 9/2/2004; p. 2.)

31. Noth­ing embod­ies Schwarzenegger’s hypocrisy more dra­mat­i­cal­ly than his duplic­i­tous atti­tude toward dan­ger­ous body-build­ing dietary sup­ple­ments. Even among the steroid-laden world of body-build­ing, Schwarzeneg­ger was noto­ri­ous for the extra­or­di­nary amounts of steroids he con­sumed. Despite pub­licly speak­ing out against steroid use by young ath­letes, Schwarzeneg­ger vetoed leg­is­la­tion that might have reduced his income from the mar­ket­ing of such sup­ple­ments. “In late September—in what appears to be a con­flict of interest—Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger vetoed a bill that could have affect­ed his per­son­al finances. The leg­is­la­tion pro­posed that, as a con­di­tion of play­ing sports, pub­lic high school ath­letes agree not to use per­for­mance-enhanc­ing dietary sup­ple­ments (PEDS) that are list­ed as dan­ger­ous by the Depart­ment of Health, Authored by Sen. Jack­ie (D‑San Mateo), Sen­ate Bill 1630 also pro­hib­it­ed pub­lic schools from accept­ing spon­sor­ships from sup­ple­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers. And it for­bade school offi­cials to pro­mote or sell PEDS to stu­dents.”
(“Pump­ing Poi­son” by Peter Byrne; San Jose Metro; 11/17–23/2004; p. 11.)

32. “The bill was not direct­ed against vit­a­mins, min­er­als, Gatorade and benign sub­stances that are gen­er­al­ly rec­og­nized by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion as safe. Speier tar­get­ed the use of pain-numb­ing con­coc­tions designed to build mus­cle mass and improve ath­let­ic per­for­mance by excit­ing the car­dio­vas­cu­lar and cen­tral ner­vous sys­tems. Pop­u­lar dietary sup­ple­ments, such as ephedrine and androstene­dione, have been linked to the deaths of young ath­letes.” (Idem.)

33. “In his veto mes­sage, Schwarzeneg­ger claimed, with­out cit­ing any sta­tis­tics or stud­ies, that most dietary sup­ple­ments are safe. He said that state reg­u­la­tion of sup­ple­ments is not need­ed because the FDA already reg­u­lates these sub­stances. ‘What most peo­ple do not under­stand is that PEDS are not reg­u­lat­ed by the FDA,’ says Roger Blake, an offi­cial with the Cal­i­for­nia Inter­scholas­tic Fed­er­a­tion, a state-fund­ed orga­ni­za­tion of high school sports offi­cials advo­cat­ing for Speier’s bill. The FDA treats cock­tails of ‘body shred­ding’ amino acids and hor­mones as food. The agency does not test nor approve them. . .” (Idem.)

34. “ . . . Accord­ing to Schwarzenegger’s State­ment of Eco­nom­ic Inter­ests, he had exten­sive finan­cial ties to the PEDS indus­try when he assumed office in Novem­ber 2003. The Cal­i­for­nia Polit­i­cal Reform Act, as admin­is­tered by the Fair Polit­i­cal Prac­tices Com­mis­sion, says that an elect­ed offi­cial, such as the gov­er­nor, must dis­qual­i­fy him­self from tak­ing any gov­ern­men­tal action on a mat­ter which he has rea­son to know could sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact his eco­nom­ic inter­ests. FPPC guide­lines say that an offi­cial has an eco­nom­ic inter­est in an indi­vid­ual or orga­ni­za­tion from whom he has ‘received $500 or more in income with­in 12 months pri­or to the [rel­e­vant gov­ern­men­tal] deci­sion.’” (Idem.)

35. “In order for a con­flict of inter­est to occur, the official’s action must be dis­cr

etionary. It must sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact his eco­nom­ic inter­est. Depend­ing on the size of the inter­est, the def­i­n­i­tion of ‘sig­nif­i­cant’ ranges from $5,000 to $10 mil­lion. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 11–13.)

36. “ . . . Last year, accord­ing to the dis­clo­sure, Schwarzeneg­ger received income from 18 man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­u­tors of PEDS. Prod­ucts sold by these com­pa­nies include cre­a­tine mono­hy­drate, glu­t­a­mine, testos­terone boost­ers, ana­bol­ics and fruit-fla­vored amino acid drinks. [Schwarzeneg­ger busi­ness part­ner Jim] Lorimer says that these com­pa­nies are all paid spon­sors of the Arnold Clas­sic.” (Ibid.; p. 13.)

37. “This world-class event is also spon­sored by Wei­der Pub­li­ca­tions, which owns Mus­cle & Fit­ness and FLEX mag­a­zines: Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger, exec­u­tive edi­tor. Both of the governor’s mus­cle mags are packed with adver­tise­ments for PEDS. An unsigned in a recent FLEX observed, ‘At the pro lev­el, mus­cle enhanc­ing drugs, such as testos­terone, ana­bol­ic steroids and growth hor­mone, are a fact of life.’” (Idem.) Schwarzeneg­ger is also mov­ing to cen­tral­ize pow­er under the con­trol of his

38. admin­is­tra­tion. He is, in fact, mov­ing to become the strong leader—the fuhrer—that he has long sought to be. In FTR#429, we exam­ined the late Alas­tair Cook’s rumi­na­tions about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Schwarzeneg­ger might become the first Amer­i­can Fuhrer. “The pro­pos­al to reor­ga­nize state gov­ern­ment, unveiled last week, con­tains some ele­ments that are rea­son­able and some that aren’t. Most dis­turb­ing in the plan—buried deep in the 2,500-page report—is an agen­da to bol­ster Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grip on pow­er. . .”
(“Schwarzenegger’s Pow­er Grab” by Jody Free­man; Los Ange­les Times; 8/9/2004; p. 1.)

39. The media have han­dled Schwarzeneg­ger with kid gloves. At least part of the “free pass” that Schwarzeneg­ger has received comes from the fact that his wife is a Demo­c­rat and a mem­ber of the Kennedy fam­i­ly. Maria Shriv­er is also a media star in her own right. An inci­dent in 1978 sug­gests that theirs is a sick rela­tion­ship and that Maria har­bors a masochis­tic streak that rais­es more ques­tions than it answers. “On Sep­tem­ber 15th, Arnold and Maria were in New Orleans for the Spinks-Ali fight at the Super­dome. Arnold had nev­er been to New Orleans, so their guide was body­build­ing great Boy­er Coe, a Louisiana native. After a day’s sight­see­ing Boy­er took Arnold and Maria to din­ner at the Caribbean Room in the Pon­char­train Hotel.”
(Arnold: The Unau­tho­rized Biog­ra­phy; by Wendy Leigh; Copy­right 1990 by Wendy Leigh; Con­g­don & Weed [HC]; ISBN 0–86553-216–8; pp. 168–169.)

40. “There he ordered the hotel’s spe­cial dessert for them to share; Mile High Pie, which mea­sures a foot high, is an entic­ing mix­ture of spumoni topped with meringue and smoth­ered in thick choco­late sauce. Smil­ing in antic­i­pa­tion, Maria was about to eat a mouth­ful when, sud­den­ly, Arnold grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her face right into it. Maria, niece of a pres­i­dent, grand­daugh­ter of a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire, and one of America’s princess­es, found her­self cov­ered in mounds of meringue and rivulets of choco­late sauce.” (Ibid.; p. 169.)

41. “Boy­er says that Maria was, to say the least, sur­prised. Arnold, of course, hav­ing cap­tured the atten­tion of the entire Caribbean Room, was delight­ed. He report­ed­ly played the pie-in-the-face joke on Maria and oth­er friends a num­ber of times. In a July 1988 inter­view with Cable Guide, he boast­ed about a vari­a­tion on it—telling a wait­ress that the cream is off, invit­ing her to smell it, then push­ing her face into it. In anoth­er inter­view Maria, when asked by a jour­nal­ist which of Arnold’s qual­i­ties she liked, declared, ‘his sense of humor.’ And when the jour­nal­ist, who had done his home­work, asked, ‘You mean the sour-milk-in-the-face trick doesn’t appall you?’ Maria answered, ‘No.’ Per­sist­ing, he asked, ‘Not even in your own face?’ ‘No, of course not,’ came the reply.” (Idem.)