ANDY ROONEY

©2003 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

The Black Farmer

tOne of the few things about our elections that’s always made me feel good is that once they’re over, Americans pretty much accept the results. We may not like the outcome, but no one throws rocks. Whether our candidate wins or loses, we live with the one who got the most votes...or at least that was true until California decided it made a mistake electing Gray Davis and ousted him as governor.

Gray Davis seemed grossly inadequate from what I saw of him on television during the campaign, but the recall was wrong and contrary to our established practice of taking what we get. Davis was a dull disaster, but Californians should have stuck with what they got when they voted. We simply cannot start overturning an honest election. Arnold Schwarzenegger will almost certainly be a better governor than Davis was, but under our system, voters don’t have a second chance to get it right.

I’m surprised to find myself thinking Schwarzenegger is sort of appealing. He’s a Republican soft on Democrats and, while his accent makes him sound like a nightclub comedian playing the part of himself, he isn’t dumb. I don’t live in California, so his election is of no concern to me, but he could be good for a state in desperate need of someone good.

Schwarzenegger is a special human being because of what he started out doing, bodybuilding, even though bodybuilding is a mindless pursuit. Men who devote their lives to building their bodies don’t usually do anything with them once they have them. They strike that familiar pose and show off, but that’s about all.

We have each tried to make our body closer to the ideal shape and most of us fail miserably. It takes more effort and self-discipline than we have - or more than we think is worth expending - for what the results do for us. Arnold must have some internal drive and control of himself that enabled him to make his body so nearly perfect. None of us can keep from being what we really are, and if Arnold, as governor, is like he was as a bodybuilder, actor and businessman, he’ll be a success.

I hope so for California’s sake and for his wife, Maria Shriver’s, sake. I worked with Maria years ago and liked and admired her. She weighed 20 pounds more then than she does now and I assume Arnold - you’ll pardon me for saying - worked on her body.

Maria was a good help during Schwarzenegger’s campaign and helped him deflect the criticism he got as a womanizer. The charges backfired. He didn’t deny that he was attracted to women and it seems as though women were flattered that he liked so many so much.

I was less pleased with Maria after she appeared at Arnold’s side during a victory celebration with a cross hanging around her neck. As a Kennedy, Maria would be Catholic, I suppose. I never heard anything about whether Arnold shared her religious convictions, or whether he was religious at all.

I don’t know why, but I don’t believe as many Baptists, Presbyterians or Methodists wear crosses as jewelry as Catholics do. It strikes me as wrong for anyone to press their beliefs on the rest of us in public with symbols of their affiliations affixed to their clothing or body. I even feel that way about men who wear the American flag as jewelry in their buttonholes. President Bush wears an American flag button in his lapel even though his patriotism would not be suspect without it.

As a special little extra for readers of this column today, I have a tidbit of information with which you can amaze your friends. "Schwarz" means black and "negger" means farmer in German.