This message bears repeating : For a muscle-bound guy, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a chickenshit for sitting out the gubernatorial debates. Here’s what he had to say the other day on Oprah :

September 24, I will be debating. Remember when I came over here and I was competing in body-building? I didn’t go to the Mr. Venice Beach contest or the Mr. Chicago contest. I went to the Mr. Olympia contest, to the No. 1 contest. And the debate on September 24 is the Super Bowl of all debates.

Whew. That must have been a pretty challenging interview for Arnie. Oprah throws in so many soft-ball questions, she makes Larry King look like Walter Cronkite.

Luckily for the people of California, Cruz Bustmante and the rest of the candidates aren’t going to take this crap lying down :

Next week is the only scheduled California recall debate that Schwarzenegger has agreed to attend. The debate, sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association, has been criticized for providing candidates with the questions in advance.

At a different debate Wednesday in Los Angeles, Bustamante asked the other participants to boycott the CBA event.

“I hope you really will take me up on my offer to have an unscripted debate outside,” Bustamante said. “Leave Arnold in there with his movie-scripted answers and have the rest go outside.”

A spokesman for Bustamante said the other candidates in attendance — Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, independent Arianna Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo — reacted positively to the idea.

I hope the rest of the candidates are serious about joining Bustamente’s proposed boycott. Considering that the rest of them have already participated in three debates, Schwarzenegger’s arrogance and cowardice about any debate format that doesn’t allow him to read his lines off a teleprompter really make a mockery of this whole election. Does he think the legislature is going to be starstruck enough to let him get away with this shit in Sacramento? I somehow doubt he’d be allowed to drag his feet while waiting for “the Super Bowl of all legislative budget battles.”