[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The announcement that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the first guest on Tom Brokaw's debut as the "Meet the Press" host after the passing of Tim Russert isn't going over well with lots of viewers. At least that's according to Yahoo!'s new "Buzz" feature.

Here are some of the comments from viewers post on the website last night:

• "Beautiful, he starts off with the Jerkinator or is that the Impersonator."
• "NBC is just so incestuous and inbred (Why Schwarzenegger? Maria Shriver) ... Brokaw helped get Schwarzenegger elected. Why wouldn't he have him on the show now?"
• "Meet the Republican. Is that the new format? They are trying to start WWIII with an attack on Iran, and we are going to see what the Austrian body builder has to say? Gimme a break!"
• "He could have had someone interesting like Mickey Mouse! Anold is an embarrassment. He's just as good a governor as an actor. Maybe he can go back to his homeland after he destroys the state of California."

And my favorite:

• "Makes you wish Tim would 'Be Back'"

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

• Health budget keep January proposed cuts, goes further in directly denying coverage
• Hundreds of thousands of the poorest working families would lose coverage

By Hanh Kim Quach
Health Care Policy Coordinator
Health Access California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released the revised version of his budget proposal today, which makes deeper cuts in health and human services programs in order to address the state’s shortfall, which has grown by nearly $3 billion since he first released the budget in January. Altogether, the $100 billion general fund budget is $17.2 billion short.

“The crisis is very real and it is very serious,’’ the governor said. His proposal would attempt to bring in $11.7 billion in new money ($3.5 billion from deficit bonds of years past), and another $5 billion by selling the lottery’s income to Wall Street. Schwarzenegger would cut an additional $12.5 billion from state programs, on top of the $1 billion that was cut earlier this year to help minimize the deficit.

by Bob Brigham [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Speaking on behalf of John McCain, our our Governor dropped a bombshell:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that if an initiative to ban gay marriage qualifies for the November ballot, he's prepared to fight it.

[...]

Schwarzenegger said he was confident a ban would never pass in California and called the effort "a waste of time."

Welcome aboard, Governor.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I was actually looking at this Robert Novak column for another reason, but this is a bit worth mentioning.  Seems that our post-partisan governor toed the party line, when push came to shove.

While 19 of 22 Republican governors once favored the Democratic bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), only two signed a Tuesday letter to President Bush urging him to sign the measure.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, a former governor of Utah, helped bring around his former colleagues. Even California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a presumed supporter of the SCHIP bill, joined his fellow Republicans. The only GOP governors signing the letter were Connecticut's Jodi Rell and Utah's Jon Huntsman (following the lead of his state's Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch).

So the governor of UTAH has more courage of his convictions than our Arnold.  Classy move.

by Bob Brigham [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]