In what might well be an historic first, a sitting governor has used the phrase, "girly men" to attack his political opponents.  I guess that's what happens when you elect a man to that position who's more juiced than Barry Bonds.  At some point, Ahnolt Ziffel's shtick starts to wear thin; behind his Teutonic accent and mannerisms, he's little more than a Chamber-of-Commerce sockpuppet.  It's no wonder that State Senate leader John Burton called his bluff on this one.  With George Bush running at the top of the ticket this November, the Governor has very little influence to pressure recalcitrant members of the Democratic Caucus.
 
The source of the Governor's irritation is the unwillingness of the Democrats in the State Legislature to repeal a bill passed late in Gray Davis' tenure, which gave workers the right to sue their employers for workplace violations.  This is perhaps the biggest issue being pressed by the business lobby at the moment, and as one might expect, exaggerated claims about its impact abound on the Right (before it passed last year, the public was warned that it would allow workers to sue if the font size of an office posting was the wrong size, a myth that I took great pains to discredit).  It has held up passage of the budget two weeks past the legal deadline, and has provided yet another reminder to voters that the biggest problem in Sacramento isn't the term-limited, interchangeable hacks who hold office, but the system that makes responsible budgeting impossible.   Schwarzenegger has yet to show he's even remotely interested in doing anything other than playing the symbolic role of "Governor", so any chance of real reform will have to be put off til 2006, when presumably he goes back to groping extras on the Terminator 4 set.