Well, it happened, didn’t it? For months and months, all of us in the other 49 states just kept telling each other, “Nah, it’s just a phase – this whole recall thing will never actually happen! California goes through these kinds of things all the time – remember parachute pants or acupuncture?!” We continued to allow that little glimmer of hope to shine through until the very end, insisting that a man who can’t even pronounce the word “GOVERNOR” couldn’t possibly be elected into the actual office, but Hollywood merely tipped its hat and flashed that clueless grin as it made its way through the polls, as if to say, “We can and we will…what exactly are we votin’ on here again?”

So Hollywood and Washington, D.C. have merged now and I can dare only guess what’s in store for us now! (I know that Ronald Reagan technically made the move long ago, but I don’t actually count that one – how many of his movies have you seen?!) Some people say that most of the high-level government positions are really puppet jobs anyways, so it won’t really matter during Arnold’s governization of California, but if that’s truly the case, then what’s to stop one of the Muppets from running next time? Maybe not Kermit the Frog because he’s certainly got more important things to do, but one of the lesser Muppets could easily do just as good of a job running the state as Mr. Universe will – they did take Manhattan, let’s not forget…

Maybe I’m too hard on The Terminator…and maybe I don’t floss nearly as much as I should, either, but the point is this – blowing things up and killing lots of bad guys simply does not qualify you to be the governor. The President, maybe, but not the governor, of the largest state in the union, no less! Leading a large mass of people…a mass of very rich people, no less…requires an astute understanding of politics in all of its forms, from business and financial aspects to the social and ethical concerns of citizens young and old, rich and richer. Sure, the risk of alien invasion or warriors from the future traveling back in time to wreck havoc on society is there, and I have no doubt in my mind that given the situation, “The Governator” would step up to the task with the wind in his hair and our anthem in his heart to do battle against the forces of evil, but when the issue at hand is whether taxes for the very, very rich should take 33% or 42% of their gross income (not counting any capital gains from investments), I’ve just got this feeling that the only thing going through his mind is something like this:

“Who is this Dow Jones and why is he inflicting much burden upon my people? He must pay – I will kill Dow Jones…dead.”

He’s got the enthusiasm for the job, don’t get me wrong, but I just think that he’d have been better off staying in the movies and letting somebody boring run the country. When it all comes down to it, Arnold Schwarzenegger is an entertainer, whether he’s strutting his eight tons of muscle across a stage or strangling somebody with his bare hands, but he just isn’t cut out for politics and that’s ok. Most politicians, on the other hand, for one reason or another actually like that boring, political stuff – for whatever reason (most likely a tax write-off of some sort!), these folks enjoy and understand all of the policies and regulations involved with keeping an entire state moving forward and even though we may snicker and call them names like dork and really, really boring dork behind their backs, they’re cut out for the job and I say more power to ‘em!

But there’s really no turning back now, and no, you can’t just recall this one, too (crazy Californians!), so at this point there’s not much else that we can do besides simply grin and bear it. It may be a dismal couple of years for those of you who actually live out there and will have to put up with Ah-nold on a daily basis, but hey, it was your idea! As for the rest of us, it gives all of us entertainers and comedians an easy scapegoat to pick on when the news is slow, plus no matter how ignorant the policies around our own states seem to be, we’ve always got “Things could be worse… *wink* *wink*” to fall back on. Don’t worry, though – it won’t be long before this whole mess is behind you and you can elect Gary Coleman into office like he should’ve been in the first place…

Of course, in the meantime, if any nation-wide, congressional spelling bees happen to take place, that’s one more state that we won’t have to worry about!