by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, August 7, 2003 3:09 P.M. EDT

The Running Man
You may remember him from such films as "Last Action Hero" and "Junior," but Arnold Schwarzenegger may be the next governor of California. The Austrian-born actor made the announcement on "The Tonight Show" last night, surprising everyone but our John Fund, who predicted it two weeks ago. James Lileks has a nice take:

Will he win? Well, he'll bring new voters to the polls--we saw this in Minnesota with Jesse [Ventura]. People who never voted will find it cool to vote for Arnie, and even though they might not be the most sophisticated participant in the process, they'll probably intuit that a vote isn't just a thumbs-up statement. It means something. Yelling "I bought your video" doesn't really put an actor in your debt, but shouting "I voted for you" somehow does.

In any case, it'll change a few minds about the possibilities of politics. All their life they saw politicians as nothing more than nerdy bloodless grinbots, and now here's this guy: a giant with a gap-tooth smile smoking a Montecristo the size of Gray Davis' shinbone. Heck yeah!

Only in America. And I say that as a good thing. Which reminds me: like all typical examples of American craziness, this will just horrify the Europeans.

We can vouch for that final point. Last week found us at a family gathering where a European aunt held forth disdainfully on "that horrible Schwarzenegger."

Schwarzenegger offends Old European sensibilities because he's a flamboyantly macho American, of course, but there's more to it than that. He's an American by choice, a native of Old Europe who left the Continent for America in 1968, when he was in his early 20s, and became a U.S. citizen just 20 years ago. His is a classic immigrant success story, a reminder that America is the land of opportunity while Europe is a place opportunity-seekers flee.

Schwarzenegger would not be the first actor to become governor of California, of course; that distinction belongs to Ronald Reagan, who followed up his two terms as governor (1967-75) with a stint as president of the United States. Alas, under current law Schwarzenegger is ineligible for the presidency because he was not born a U.S. citizen.

Maybe it's time to amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to serve as president, so long as they have held American citizenship for at least 14 years (the current provision requires 14 years' residency as well as native citizenship). If this were done within five years, Schwarzenegger could run in 2008 to succeed President Bush. Just imagine President Schwarzenegger standing astride the world stage, towering over the puny likes of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. Those guys would start to long for the good old days of George W. Bush.

You Don't Say
"Schwarzenegger's Celebrity Could Help"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 7

Spring Back
Another entertainment personality has decided to stay out of politics for now. Jerry Springer, the erstwhile Cincinnati mayor turned trash-TV pioneer, says he won't seek the Ohio Senate seat currently held by tax-happy Republican George Voinovich. "As long as I'm doing that show, my message, no matter how sincere and no matter how heartfelt, does not get through to the people I need to reach," the Associated Press quotes Springer as saying at a news conference yesterday.

The AP describes Springer's program this way: "The show's lineup of pimps, strippers, cheating spouses and too-friendly relatives is accompanied by a bleep-filled soundtrack that drowns out the obscenities." Which, come to think of it, might not have been such a bad innovation to bring to the Senate. Imagine how it would improve C-Span 2 if, say, someone took a bleeper to Robert Byrd.

Are the Stars About to Align?
On Tuesday we suggested that Sen. Joe Lieberman may find a more welcoming home in the GOP than in his own Democratic Party. A few hours earlier, it turns out John Nichols, a columnist for The Nation, was saying very much the same thing. Urging Democrats not to support Lieberman on the ground that the party's base would stay home in November, Nichols wrote:

While all the other candidates are trying to pick up on Dean's call to arms--with varying degrees of success--Lieberman continues to preach a Republican-lite line that is so out of touch with political realities on the ground in America that it inspires laughter at Democratic gatherings. Lieberman thinks he is in a fight for the future of the Democratic party, but the truth is that he has already lost that fight.

It's not often that this column agrees with The Nation, a hysterically far-left magazine to say the least. Surely this rare consonance means we're on to something. Now all we need is for Lieberman to realize we're right, and we'll have a syzygy.

Back Talk
Remember Mario Cuomo? He used to be New York's ultraliberal governor, and in the pre-Clinton years his name often surfaced as a potential Democratic presidential candidate. Cuomo never ran for president, but now he's urging Al Gore to do so--again. Reports the Associated Press:

"I would like to see him get in," said Cuomo in an interview with WROW-AM radio in Albany, N.Y.

"Right now, the Democratic voice is not a single voice. It is not a chorus. It is a babble," said the former New York governor.

Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker, brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo--it's only talk. "People have been dying to hear him speak," Monica Friedlander, a "longtime Gore volunteer who started Draft Gore 2004," tells the Boston Globe. Of course, dead people don't vote (except maybe in Chicago), so if Gore does want to run again, he'd be well-advised to keep his mouth shut.

Really, though, Gore would have to be crazy to run for president. As the vice president from a popular administration in a time of prosperity and (apparent) peace, he was a very strong contender in 2000. As a challenger to a popular president in wartime, he'd face much tougher odds, especially since he's gone completely off the rails on foreign policy.

Once one of his party's more responsible voices--one of only 10 Democrats in the Senate to vote for the Gulf War in 1991--he delivered a speech last September so left-wing it could have come from Howard Dean. The Globe said he actually "sought out" MoveOn.org, which was one of the most fervent advocates of continuing Saddam Hussein's murderous rule in Iraq, to host a speech he gave today. Read the transcript, and it's clear that Gore's gone gaga--not only expressing regret at Saddam's overthrow but also claiming we're in the midst of Depression-like losses in jobs: "As I've noted before, I was the first one laid off. And you never forget something like that."

His lurch to the left makes Gore a more plausible candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. But if he got it, he would be remembered as the two-time loser who suffered a landslide defeat the second time around, rather than as the guy who "won the popular vote" and came within a hair's breadth of the presidency.

A Florida Quagmire
Bob Graham, Florida's eccentric senior senator, is running a quixotic campaign for president, which seems to be based on the premise that his support for leaving Saddam Hussein in power somehow makes him "tough on terrorism." He's going nowhere in the polls; Mario Cuomo says he lacks "that pizzazz, that jazz, that stuff that startles people."

But he may end up succeeding in getting himself elected to a new office: ex-senator. "Graham's presidential bid and his harsh criticism of President Bush's justification for the U.S.-led war against Iraq has cost him the approval of some home-state Florida voters," the Associated Press reports from Tallahassee. "The former two-term governor and three-term senator has enjoyed approval ratings above 60 percent for much of his political career, but a poll released Wednesday showed his ratings at a record low 47 percent."

Sharpton Imitates Us

"The white liberal activists [Howard] Dean attracts are, to be sure, a crucial part of the Democratic coalition. But so are blacks--and Dean, who comes from a state that is 96.8% white and just 0.5% black, has shown no evidence that he has any appeal to blacks."--Best of the Web Today, July 7

"When I come to Iowa, they ask how can Sharpton get the white vote. I've run in New York and gotten more white votes in my races than he's gotten black votes in Vermont? Why aren't we talking about that?"--Al Sharpton, quoted by the Associated Press, Aug. 6

Hawashed Up
"Maher Hawash, an Intel software engineer whose detention in Oregon prompted high-profile protests about civil rights abuse, pleaded guilty [yesterday] to a federal charge of conspiring to help the Taliban in Afghanistan," the Washington Post reports. "In return for his promise to testify against six other Portland-based suspects accused of plotting in 2001 to wage war against the United States, federal prosecutors dropped more serious terrorism charges against Hawash."

This case is noteworthy for two reasons. First, Hawash had a lot of advocates who loudly declared his innocence. The Free Mike Hawash! Web site is still up, though it hasn't been updated with news of his guilty plea (indeed, the latest news on it is from May 6).

Second, Hawash and his alleged co-conspirators are from Portland--a city whose police department notoriously announced in November 2001 that it would refuse to cooperate with federal terrorism investigations. Let's hope there's some rethinking going on in the Beaver State.

Masters of Disguise
The Washington Post reports that the Department of Homeland Security "notified airlines July 28 of a possible terrorist plot to hijack a plane using common items disguised as weapons":

The advisory warned of specific items, such as remote door openers, camera flash attachments, cellular phones, and multi-band and dual-speaker radios. Such devices could be used both aboard planes and also "against government buildings, and/or public venues having controlled access," it said.

It looks like a bomb, but it's really just a camera flash attachment. We hate to give terrorists ideas, but wouldn't it be more effective to use weapons disguised as common items?

Don't You Feel Reassured?
"Iran: Nuke Program Homemade and Peaceful"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 7

Sweden Swelters
We're beginning to understand why Europeans get so hysterical over "global warming": They're real wimps about the heat. Yesterday we noted that Germans are unable to work when it's more than 84 degrees outside. Not to be outdone, a Swedish bus driver resorted to muliebrity to find relief from the heat. "Bus driver Mats Lundgren, in the northern town of Umea, asked for permission to drive his vehicle in shorts," Agence France-Presse reports. No dice, said the bus company. "He then decided to show up in a skirt, which is allowed by the transport company's dress code."

How hot was it? you ask? Twenty-five metric degrees, or a sweltering 77 on the normal scale. As we write, the temperature here in New York is 78, and it often gets a lot hotter than that during the summer, yet we've never once seen a cross-dressing bus driver.

The Great Depression
"America's business productivity soared in the second quarter of 2003 and new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a six-month low last week, a double dose of good news as the economy tries to get back to full throttle," the Associated Press reports from Washington. Wow, all that good news is enough to make us overlook all those mixed metaphors.

But then we open this morning's New York Times and find Bob Herbert's column, which seems totally out of touch with reality: "The hemorrhaging of jobs in the aftermath of the recent 'mild' recession is like nothing the U.S. has seen in more than half a century. Millions continue to look desperately for work, and millions more have given up in despair."

Sounds like a depression, all right--but of the psychological, not the economic, kind. Doesn't the Times' insurance plan cover Prozac?

That Must Hurt
"Companies Squeezing More Out of Workers"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 7

Who Says You Can't Take It With You?
"Death Hurt Psyche, Not Finances"--headline, (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer, Aug. 7.

How He Got Into the Bottle, She'll Never Know
"Woman Gets Message From Father in Bottle"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 7

Rub a Dub Dub
"Three Tenors Take Bath"--headline, CNN.com, Aug. 7

Who Knew?
"Study: Teens View First Sex as Romantic"--headline, Washington Times, Aug. 7

But We Oppose Them
"Blue Angels Support Plane Malfunctions"--headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 7

Say What?
"Friendship Between Woman and Mule Beats the Odds"--headline, Kansas City Star, Aug. 7

Puns That Cross the Line
An editorial in Denver's Rocky Mountain News notes that the U.S. Olympic Committee "has created a special arm to manage Paralympic athletes."

"Special arm"? C'mon, guys, we love a good pun as much as anyone, but that's just cruel.

You Oughta 'C' Me Now
If you thought Pyongyang's nukes were the biggest problem on the Korean peninsula, wait till you hear this: "Lawmaker Kim Seong-ho of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party is tackling a sensitive issue that could eventually reshape the face of the nation--by changing the English reference of Korea to Corea," the Seoul-based Korea Herald reports.

" 'Corea' has deeper historical roots while 'Korea' is of very recent origin," Rep. Kim told The Korea Herald. "Reverting back to Corea is an issue of national pride and historical legitimacy." . . .

"After all, the term Corea is no longer unfamiliar to us," Kim said, referring to the Italian slogan "Forza Corea" chanted by millions of red-T-shirt-clad Korean soccer fans during the World Cup last year.

Changing just one letter of the name seems like sort of a pointless exercise. Why not follow the example of the rock star Prince, formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince? When he became Tafkap, he took a funny-looking symbol as his "name"--and if you look at the ads on the Korea Herald Web site, you'll note that the Korean language has no shortage of funny-looking symbols.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Darren Gold, S.E. Brenner, Paul Dyck, Patrick Mulry, Robert LeChevalier, Gabi Hickert, Tom Burson, Matthew Clarke, Steven Getman, Charlie Gaylord, Robert Sherman, Jason Woodward, Tom Linehan, Justin Taylor, Richard Buttimer, C.E. Dobkin, Jeffrey Shapiro, Chuck Lipsig, Joel Goldberg, Lew Prince, Mara Gold, Daniel Goldstein, Barak Moore, Ned Thompson, Michael Siegel, Bernard Levine, Charles Matthews, Naftali Friedman, Peter Busch, Chris Taber, Rod Pennington, Benjamin Gastel, Werner Renberg, Gabriel Openshaw, Brian Nicholson, Brian Azman, Jim Ely, Chris Field, Tim McClennan, Phil Webb and George Geddes. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Tamara Chalabi: Jordan slandered my father at Saddam's behest.
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• Dale Buss: A tune-up for Henry Ford's gallery of Americana.