Arnold gets Beatty'd up


While Arnold prepared to dance with the Devil in Florida and Texas this week, Warren Beatty tore him a new one at UC-Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy commencement (triggering one of those non-story tempests in a teapot about whether Beatty himself plans to run for Governor; I'm not saying that would be a bad thing, I'm just so certain that he won't run that I think it's still to cover that possibility with any seriousness).

A transcript of Beatty's delicious speech, which wanders from the actor's boyhood to the obligatory Shakespeare quote, and manages to sound deeply gentle even as it excoriates Schwarzenegger and the American Empire, is here.

Beatty did a fairly comprehensive job of beating up on Arnold, hitting all the major points: labor relations, the pointlessness of the special election given its proximity to the June primary, etc.

Perhaps more importantly, by speaking out against a Governor who hails from Hollywood, Beatty broke the long silence heretofore observed by the overwhelmingly Democratic entertainment industry on the subject of Schwarzenegger's governorship.

Beatty unleashes riff on governor
(San Francisco Chronicle) Academy Award-winning actor-director Warren Beatty delivered a devastating critique of Arnold Schwarzenegger at a UC Berkeley commencement Saturday, and refused to rule out a Democratic run for governor -- saying that he would "think about it" if Schwarzenegger continues to endorse "a totally unnecessary special election." ...

"We are not the governor's dumbbells,'' Beatty said to applause and laughter. "It's not fooling anybody for him to be running around raising money ... from rich Republicans all over the country who hope that they can get this reactionary stuff started in California.''

He then asked why the state needs "a totally unnecessary $70 million extra election in November, when we're going to have another one anyway in June. That's nothing but a strategy to distract attention from the failure to deal honestly with the budget.'''

"It's become time to define a Schwarzenegger Republican,'' Beatty said. "A Schwarzenegger Republican is a Bush Republican who says he's a Schwarzenegger Republican.''


Emphasis of awesome quote (that we should put in a TV ad) is mine.

More elsewhere in the press:
Beatty thinks Arnold isn't playing nice (Concord Monitor)
Beatty has political advice for Gov. Schwarzenegger (KESQ)

Posted: Mon - May 23, 2005 at 01:43 PM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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