Santa Schwarzenegger

I watched the Bill Maher show after election night and heard him going on and on about how effective Arnold Schwarzenegger is at pushing through policies that liberals want. Somehow he conveniently forgets about how he rewrote global warming policy through an unconstitutional executive order, for example, or the dozens of other ways in which Arnold has maintained a moderate pose in public while behind the scenes doing the bidding of your average corprocrat:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doled out high-paying and prestigious state jobs this year to dozens of outgoing members of his administration, including six-figure salaries for posts he once said were a waste of taxpayer money and should be eliminated.

An Associated Press investigation of Schwarzenegger's staffing purge since last year's special election revealed that he has appointed or transferred 40 former staffers elsewhere in state government. At least half of those saw their taxpayer-funded salaries increase after they left Schwarzenegger's office, some by more than $30,000 a year.

Schwarzenegger also gave six former staffers jobs with state boards and commissions he previously tried to dismantle.

On one level, the appointments represent the latest in a long-standing practice of political patronage for loyal gubernatorial aides in the state's capital. But they also are appointments that sometimes run counter to Schwarzenegger's own statements on governing and raise questions about his willingness to make future cuts to agencies where many of his former employees now draw state paychecks.

"Schwarzenegger promised to clean up and streamline the bureaucracy that is California government," said Ned Wigglesworth, spokesman for California Common Cause. "Now he's stacking the deck with his folks, and they're making a pretty penny off taxpayers in the process. We're disappointed comparing the rhetoric to the reality."

(h/t Calitics)

By the way, the date on this article was... 10 days after the election. Thanks, AP, for making this oh-so-relevant!

We also learned after the election that California quietly stopped a review into prison official safety checks that was supposed to be mandated after an employee was stabbed. The reason cited was "fiscal issues."

Maybe if the money given to Arnold's political friends were shifted to fund worker safety reviews, everybody (except for Arnold's friends) would be happy!

This comes at a time when the chief apologist for the Governor is going on and on about how the inaugural balls this time around will be NOTHING like the lavish private parties with all kinds of press from all over the world and VIPs and celebs and lots to drink and teh kewlest time evah!!!

The subtext there is pretty clear, don't you think? Not necessarily a governor of the people, if by "people" you mean rich friends and contributors and celebrities. The useful idiots on the left who praise this guy's "sensible moderation" are either not paying attention (probably) or just as star-struck as everybody else (probably, too).