Arnie in hot water over "girlie-men" barb

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Following months of sweet talk and back-slapping, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing criticism after calling Democratic legislators "girlie-men" and urging voters to "terminate" them at the polls.


Sacramento lawmakers irked Schwarzenegger by failing to meet a July 1 deadline for a $103-billion (55.3 billion pounds) budget amid disagreements over funding for local governments. The star of the Terminator series of action films had vowed to meet a deadline that has mostly eluded his predecessors in recent years.


"I'm going to make you officially, right now, the Terminators," he told a cheering crowd in Stockton on Sunday. "If they do not pass my budget, on November 2nd, I want you to go out and go after those Democratic legislators, they are obstructionists. Go out there, vote them out of office."


On Saturday, he referred to "those girlie men up there in Sacramento," a epithet borrowed from an old Saturday Night Live television skit about body building. He has also revived other lines, both well known and obscure, from his movies.


"It's just unbecoming, the governor of the greatest state in the union. It's a great disappointment to me," Democrat John Burton, State Senate President pro Tempore, said on Monday. "We try to work together. We do get along personally together, although that envelope is being pushed a bit."


Since his October 2003 election, the former film star and body builder has worked closely with Democrats to win approval for a record state bond and to reform the worker's compensation system.


TALKING TOUGH


He has won over adversaries with amusing Hollywood anecdotes or by sharing a cigar in a special tent he set up in a courtyard outside the state capitol to accommodate tough state restrictions on smoking.


Humor and bravado have long played a key part in Schwarzenegger's charm arsenal, helping him conquer the world of bodybuilding, Hollywood and, most recently, politics.


Yet the "girlie men" line has sparked criticism even from Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans. "Of course it's not a good idea; liberals don't have a sense of humor," Republican State Senator Tom McClintock said in an interview.


The San Francisco Chronicle chided Schwarzenegger in its lead editorial on Monday: "Schwarzenegger ... shifted from brutish to boorish this weekend when he called the resisting lawmakers 'girlie-men' -- a term with an ugly history as a slur against gays."


Analysts said Schwarzenegger risked alienating legislators whose good will he will need again in the future. But most observers also agreed that somehow the governor and legislators would eventually forge a compromise on the budget.


"We've watched this process for a great many years and what's going on right now has happened so many times in the past, and eventually there will be a budget and eventually they will reach a compromise," George Deukmejian, a Republican who served as governor from 1983-1991, told Reuters.