How did we miss this!?
In remarks to the U.S.-Russian Business Council last week in Cal”e”fornia, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked to opine on the New START treaty. Arnold has been saying smart things about nuclear weapons for some time now, but this appears to be the first time he’s explicitly riffed on the treaty. His endorsement was, well…
Well, let me just tell you that the most excited I’m about is — and I’m asking Congress to pass –is the agreement to reduce our nuclear weapons. This, I think, is the most important thing, because we can talk from here to eternity — (Applause) We can talk from here to eternity about doing business together but if there’s an accident, a nuclear accident of someone pulling something — as you know, there are still a huge amount of missiles that are pointed at each other for no reason.
But everyone is trying to — every country is kind of concerned about how do you get — how do you reduce that? Because there are those in America that are trying to flex their muscles and pretend they’re ballsy by saying, “we’ve got to keep those nuclear weapons.” That’s very rugged, when you say that. (Laughter) It’s not rugged at all; it’s an idiot that says that. It’s stupid to say that. (Applause)
So, therefore, I think that what President Medvedev has done and President Obama has done and what Secretary George Shultz under Ronald Reagan has been promoting for decades now, is to reduce the nuclear weapons. And you’ve got to start somewhere and I think that they have done an extraordinary job in doing that.
Now Congress has to go and agree with that and verify it and — ratify it, I should say — and they haven’t done that because there is a paralysis in Washington, which is the sad story when you live here, that you see that an election like this that’s coming up on November 2nd has literally paralyzed Congress and they’re not capable of doing anything. And it’s a major complaint that I have. It is really a shame and it is such a disservice to the taxpayers, to the voters, to the American people.
