Opinion: Regarding President Schwarzenegger....
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
On Sunday we editorialized that naturalized U.S. citizens (*cough* Arnold *cough*) should be legally allowed to run for president, and conducted a roll call of California’s congressional delegation on the topic. How’d that go over?
After the jump, enjoy some meditations on immigration, outrage at groping, and aspersions on Andres Martinez’ character!
Woodrow Eisenhower (we’re guessing that’s not a real name, but who knows?):
Sounds reasonable to me.
Arnold Schwarzenegger for President - HELL NO!!!
I wonder, has the LA times now fallen in Love with the Governator, or is it a shameless attempt (given Arnold’s popularity in California) to turn around their troubled fortunes by telling people what presumably they want to hear?
What’s astonishing to me is how the LAT editorial board didn’t bother to do its research -- it didn’t even know that Schwarzenegger holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Austria. [Karen] Pomer wrote a Letter To The Editor protesting the paper’s convenient amnesia about the sexual harrassment allegations against Scharzenegger that the LAT itself raised in a 2003 investigation -- ironically, with Pomer’s help. But, remember, that the paper’s management who OK’ed that probe is gone, and replaced by new LAT publisher, David Hiller, who oversees editorials as a card-carrying Republican, Rumsfeld friend and architect of the Reagan administration’s controversial U.S. immigration policy calling for concentration camps.
So, what makes the Times not only give Schwarzengger a pass endorsing him for re-election as Governor and now promoting him as Presidential material? [...] Why not call for our Governor to give up his [Austrian citizenship] before you tout him as President? In any case, Schwarzenegger’s alleged criminal behavior would earn a lesser movie-star a spot on Megan’s List or as a roommate in re-hab with [U.S. Rep Mark] Foley, not a place in the White House.
[T]he LA Times is not serious about Arnold running. The editorial’s stated purpose is to repeal the constitutional requirement that presidents be born Americans. Amending the Constitution takes longer than a few months. What a turnaround from 2003, when the LA Times threw everything at Arnold to try to stop his election, including 20-year-old charges of sexual harrassment. I trust President Schwarzenegger will take the flowery praise in today’s editorial in stride, and he should be happy. He is the one Republican ‘president’ who did not have to die in order to be appreciated.
If he moves from the costs of a health insurance backed plan for universal healthcare to a National Health Plan, I’ll be the first to agree with the [...] editorial.
We’re a nation of immigrants, many of whom are more exemplary and loyal to their adopted country than people born here.
In the real world there are plenty of native-born and naturalized Americans with divided loyalties and questionable links, and while monarchies are less of an (overt) force than they were in the past, nowadays we have a close equivalent in global elites to whom rules that bind the commonfolk frequenly do not apply. Can someone like Arnold be trusted to be president? Based on his performance to date, obviously no. He even has dual citizenship; if things go south here, he could always just move back to Austria. Those who were born in the U.S. only have the option of staying here or going into exile in a foreign country. What about other foreign-born people like Andres Martinez or CA Assembly speaker Fabian Nunez? Exactly what sort of loyalty do they have to the U.S.? Can we afford to find out?