The Very Definition of Obscenity

Via Willie Brown at the SFGate:

I went to an unbelievable dinner party at Charlotte and George Shultz's penthouse Monday night for retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, the new secretary of veterans affairs.

The party was a Stanlee Gatti tour de force, complete with fatigue-wearing servers, camouflage table cloths, extras dressed up as snipers and a full Marine color guard and band.

It was like being in Afghanistan.

All this for about a dozen guests. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there with his wife, Maria Shriver. Gavin Newsom was there with Jennifer, and boy is she showing.

I was seated next to Arnold, and he seemed to be holding up pretty well, considering the nightmare going on up in Sacramento.

The dessert: a chocolate replica of the Joint Chiefs of Staff seal, surrounded with vanilla ice cream and the Golden Gate Bridge in chocolate on each side.

h/t Marisacat

Schwarzenegger: Democrat?

From the "You've got to be kidding!" file comes this:

Arnold Schwarzenegger (D-CA)
by kos
Mon May 21, 2007 at 09:38:05 AM PDT

Early this year, I found myself speaking to a California legislator high up on the leadership. Democrats had just lost a governors race that looked winnable six months before Election Day, but turned into an easy romp by the Terminator.

But rather than be upset, instead of gearing up for battle, this legislator was feeling quite optimistic and content. "We're going to be working with a Democratic governor," he told me.

And while not even a real Democratic governor is perfect, fact is that Schwarzenegger is for all intent purposes a Democrat to the consternation of Republicans and quiet glee of Democrats in the great Golden State.

kos has also dubbed Schwarzenegger with the "progressive" label on what is supposed to be a "progressive" Democrat site. Quick kos, define "progressive", because from what I've seen that term on your site equals "centrist" and it now appears that that applies not only to Dems, but to Republicans as well.

As this commenter and others point out, Arnold is hardly worthy of the label "progressive" or "Democrat" (unless you're referring to the Blue Dog Dem sellout bunch who might as well be Republicans).

We have a feisty Conservative premier here in Canada, Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador, who fiercely opposes our Conservative prime minister, but none would ever slap the label "Liberal" beside his name, suddenly believing he'd undergone some political conversion on the road to Damascus. Williams sees the hard right turn Harper is taking but Williams is a Conservative. Period. And Schwarzenegger is a Republican, unless and until he quits the party or says otherwise.

The fact that the owner of what is (incorrectly) dubbed as the biggest "liberal" site in Amercian politics* would so heartily throw his support behind a Republican - any Republican - and shill for the party of death, destruction and torture speaks volumes.


*kos is currently working on a book that will define his new political label: "Libertarian Democrat" - whatever that is supposed to mean. See if you can figure it out.

(h/t to Marisacat's blog for this story.)