There was a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger battled alien robots and Russian spies. After several years in politics, his enemies have come down a few notches. He now fights squirrels.
The worst governor in California history is upset with economic impact of the red tape the Democrat-controlled legislature has imposed on the state.
The Wall Street Journal reports the governor’s grievances:
“Right now the way it’s written, a lot of those laws, it’s an invitation to misuse them,” he told reporters last week. “And it holds up projects for too long a period of time, especially now.”
Mr. Schwarzenegger singled out environmental obstacles that are blocking construction of alternative energy farms in the Mojave Desert. Some of his green allies have become “fanatics,” he said, and “go overboard.” He then launched an extended riff explaining why he thought environmental objections to the Mojave Desert projects on the grounds they could hurt endangered species were, well, specious.
“So the environmentalists . . . are confused because they want to have renewable energy but then when it comes to the permitting process, creating that renewable energy and building the solar plants, they are then in the way.
And they then talk about, ‘You cannot go and destroy this squirrel.'”
“I say, ‘What squirrel? I was out there, I didn’t see a squirrel.’
“They say, ‘Well, there could be a squirrel coming very soon.’
“So I say, ‘But there’s no squirrel there right now.’
“‘But you’ve got to protect things that could be there.'”
He’s right, of course, but it’s just difficult for any California resident to believe anything that comes out of this guy’s mouth anymore.
But by using squirrels, Schwarzenegger has captured the perfect metaphor for California’s dysfunctional government.
Source: Wall Street Journal
