Yes, it's true, our greenwashed governor isn't even waiting until after November to demonstrate that his "green" photo op in August was first and foremost a campaign event.
CA Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, sponsor of the global warming bill that Schwarzenegger signed to international fanfare, appears to be shocked by the governor's George-Bush-like behavior. He told the SF Chronicle:
"You can't rewrite a law through executive order.... This is totally inconsistent with the intent of the law and with the way that it is written."
Ummm, yeah. Speaker Núñez, that used to be true; perhaps you weren't aware of the Bush administration's record of using "signing statements" to disregard laws they don't like, but don't want to veto for political reasons? Too bad you didn't figure out the truth about Schwarzenegger's continuing agenda to consolidate power in the Executive Branch before you helped him take a big lead in this election back in August by giving his handlers the "truthiness" they needed to portray him as "green" and "bipartisan."
more from "Núñez slams governor on emission law" below the fold.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and some environmental groups charged Monday that an executive order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign today undermines an agreement the governor struck with Democrats on the state's landmark global warming law.
Schwarzenegger will sign an order giving the secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency the duty of overseeing parts of the law's implementation and emphasizes the development of a new market allowing companies to buy and sell greenhouse gas emissions credits.
Núñez said that the executive order gives more power to the executive branch than the law calls for and that the governor's emphasis on a market-based approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions ignored other aspects of the law. He suggested the governor was reinterpreting the law based on proposals he had suggested to lawmakers during negotiations over the legislation this year but that had been rejected by the Legislature.
Me, I figure most of the high-ID commenters here on dKos babbling on about how they're gonna vote for Schwarzenegger because he's "green" and because Phil Angelides is "a nobody" and "all about big development" aren't sincere. Some of them sound bitchy enough to be one of Bill Bradley's (Schwarzenegger's "favorite" Democrat, just like Lieberman) sock puppets, and some of them are probably the result of the Schwarzenegger campaign's 24/7 monitoring of the Internet.
But I'm sure plenty of voters are sincere in their "you know, you just gotta like the guy" comments -- after all apparently plenty of Americans who now hate and despise George W. Bush were fooled into voting for him in 2004 because, "you know, you feel like you wanna sit down and have a beer with the guy."
And the similiarities -- the fake populism, the Big Lies, the Big Money donors, the attacking and coopting the opponent on their strength strategies (nobody's done more for CalPERS divestment from companies doing business in the Sudan than Phil Angelides) -- are no surprise, because it's the same damned "power team" that sold the American people a bill of goods in 2004.
Schwarzenegger campaign manager Steve Schmidt is known as "Karl Rove's lieutenant," he's a White House aide to Dick Cheney, and ran George W. Bush's reelection "war room" in 2004. He was also "point man" for Bush on Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court
Then there's Communications Director Adam Mendelsohn, from DCI Group, elite GOP lobbyists who do global warming denial for EXXON and "tobacco doesn't cause cancer" work for JR Reynolds. In the PR world, they're particularly known for setting up fake, bought-and-paid-for citizens groups to undermine workplace smoking bans in the name of "Citizens for Freedom to Smoke" or whatever. via astroturf letters to the editor and press conferences, etc. (I suspect it was Mendelsohn's idea to pay off "progressive" SF minister Rev. Amos Brown, a former fierce critics of Schwarzenegger who's now making radio ads for him. Sure the Rev. has only made $16,000+ so far, but who's to say how much more $8,000 a month plus "expenses" work as a "political consultant" is coming?)
Matthew Dowd, Schwarzenegger's "chief campaign strategist" is another "top White House veteran" who was the "lead architect of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign".
I mean, folks, don't you get it yet?
George W. Bush is dead in the water, politically. IMO, this fake "green," fake "bipartisan" and bought-and-paid-for campaign in California is a trial run for the political strategy for whichever "New!" "Modern!" "Green!" "not-George-Bush!" Republican candidate runs for President in 2008, whether it's Schwarzenegger or not. (yes, I know about the Constitutional obstacle, but if this Austrian-born weightlifter gets elected again to CA governor, one of the most important political positions in the world, not just the country, expect to hear the same kind of talk about changing the Constitution that we heard after Schwarzenegger won the recall election.) And sure, having a celebrity like Schwarzenegger as a candidate makes it easier, but techniques and lessons learned in CA 2006 will be useful no matter who the "anti-George-Bush" GOP candidate is in 2008.
Schwarzenegger is a George Bush Republican, in that he puts Big Money interests first, whether the policies those Big Money interests want are good for everyday people or good for the country as a whole.
Don't miss this video, "I have plenty of money," which contrasts Schwarzenegger's public statements during the recall election about how "special interest contributions come in, and special favors go out" with his actual record of signing bills favorable to his big donors. An interviewer gets him boxed into a corner with her repeated queries about how he has broken his pledges not to take special interest money and he finally replies with the truth: "What's wrong with that?"
Usually, the CA gov diaries here at dKos disappear into the great unread, but I'm hoping this one -- written on my birthday, thank you very much, and no I won't be doing politics all day -- will be different. Big Money Democrats and the big bloggers may have abandoned the field in California, but I'll be damned if I'm going to shut up and stop fighting the powers that be, whether they come wrapped in greenwashing and expensive celebrity suits or not.