Instead, she attacks the Terminator!

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently used the term "girlie men" in a disagreement with lawmakers, and for this he's being denounced for "homophobia":

Democrats said Schwarzenegger's remarks were insulting to women and gays and distracted from budget negotiations. State Sen. Sheila Kuehl said the governor had resorted to "blatant homophobia."

"It uses an image that is associated with gay men in an insulting way, and it was supposed to be an insult. That's very troubling that he would use such a homophobic way of trying to put down legislative leadership," said Kuehl, one of five members of the Legislature's five-member Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus.

"It's ironic that the governor would try to find a metaphor for weakness when his real problem is that we're being too strong," she added.

Among heterosexual men, however, there is the documented phenomenon of metrosexuals. Isn't it possible that a guy like Schwarzenegger might just as easily have had them in mind?

Or Saturday Night Live?

How any of this is "homophobic" escapes me.

I don't think there'd have been the slightest outcry had Kuehl accused a Schwarzenegger of macho posturing. I don't recall much of a fuss when she said his supporters were lacking in rational thought:

"Voters watched Arnold Schwarzenegger rescue everybody, saving the world in an hour and 51 minutes, and that really appealed to them," said Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. "They put aside rational thought about if Arnold Schwarzenegger could really do the job. They just voted for the recall out of anger and for Schwarzenegger out of hope. They voted for him because they hope someone will rescue them from the angst they feel."

Kuehl recalls Schwarzenegger bounding out of his Hummer in the Capitol basement to give her a bear hug. "Senator," she quotes him, "I just found out you were on TV. I'll bet I'm the only one in the Capitol who knows that." Kuehl didn't have the heart to tell him that, no, practically everyone in the building knew she'd played Zelda Gilroy in the early '60s TV show "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

Just so I am clear, this is coming from the woman who played Zelda on 'Dobie Gillis.' And she gets to be a State Senator? People in glass houses Sheila. People in glass houses.

I am offended, not by the Governor's remarks, but by the reaction to them. Senator Kuehl and Assemblyman Leno are promoting homophobic stereotypes of effiminate qualities attributed to gay men. If they understood the homoeroticism between SNL's Hanz and Franz, they would understand the real meaning of girlie men--those who are too weak to fight back and represent themselves. There are too many members of the State Legislature who fit this mold--those who are beholden to the theocracy of the religious right or those beholden to the theocracy of big government on the left...and too few who are joining with the Governor to represent the rest of us Californians.

I don't think she'd like it. Omphalos (the blogger who supplied the Superbowl link) also says she hates criticism:

....the way to piss her off is to suggest there might be something she doesn't know.