Experts Expound

“Just before he left office, Gov. Schwarzenegger made some controversial appointments and commutations. How will they affect his legacy, if at all?

The one you are referring to is a nasty turd blossom that will sink to the bottom of the murky pond and be forgotten in time.

Schwarzenegger will be remembered for having a failed record. The late actions will be forgotten or footnotes.

They will have no long-term impact.  Most governors and presidents do the same thing.  His legacy will hinge on impact of reforms he spearheaded and in the environment.  The appointments and commutations will be forgotten.  

Nobody will much remember the appointments. The Nunez commutation wasn’t well thought-out, and more than a few people choked on it, including Nunez’ San Diego prosecutor. It will add a smudge of cronyism to Schwarzenegger’s legacy but won’t affect it. He’ll be judged by what he did – and did not – accomplish as governor.

Did you say legacy? Susan Kennedy leading him around by his steroid-shrunken sack; complete fraud and lies regarding more than one of the budgets; a billion-dollar train track from nowhere to nowhere with no train; appointing Kennedy’s girlfriend – a psychotherapist – as a highly paid judge on the Cal/OSHA appeals board to hear cases about industrial accidents; failing to comply with the law and develop regulations around work.

It would be hard to further ruin the legacy of a governor who left office with a 23 per cent approval rating. But having said that, his commutation of the sentence of Fabian Nunez’ son was another major blunder that will add to the huge pile of evidence that Schwarzenegger didn’t know what he was doing and too often didn’t grasp the optics of politics. May he not be back.

Some Republicans that may not have appreciated Governor Schwarzenegger might have kept quiet about him out of some respect for the fellow Republicans.  For many, these final acts were so outrageous that they will allow those people that would have remained quiet to question his entire administration.

His legacy is just like his movie career – some catch phrases and bad acting — in this case some catch phrases and bad governing.

Fortunately for Arnold, he does have some actual accomplishments he can point to (budget, global warming, redistricting). But the ‘politics as usual’ air rising from his slew of appointments and halving the prison sentence for Fabian Nunez thug son simply reeks.  

“Arnold’s indefensible commutation of kid Nunez was as predictable as it is tone deaf and morally bankrupt. For this act and a thousand others, history books will quite properly treat the Schwarzenegger administration far far worse than the Davis administration it replaced.

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