Republican strategist and commentator Arnold Steinberg, in Tim Rutten's L.A. Times column today:

Schwarzenegger's strategy requires a docile news media, and he's getting one.

Steinberg and Rutten (and Democratic strategist Bill Carrick) all agree that unaggressive reporters are making it easy for Schwarzenegger to get away with his movie-marketing campaign of mostly exposing himself only to softball questioners. This week it was Oprah, Larry King and Howard Stern, and before it was pro-recall radio hosts and Jay Leno.

By the way, after my down day earlier in the week I forgot to post Rutten's sage perspective on the 9th Circuit hoohah. There have been some great arguments posted online, pro and con -- one of the things I enjoy about the Web is the easy access to high-level, nuanced legal analysis you can't get in the daily media. I'm not a lawyer, I just enjoy reading and absorbing the intricacies. Much more interesting than the politically motivated, hysterical mouth foaming and finger pointing. For me, Rutten puts all that in the right context:

One of the reliable traditions of American commentary is that any judge who decides against your position in a controversial case is an unprincipled, partisan judicial activist grinding his or her particular ideological ax. A jurist who decides for you, on the other hand, is a courageous defender of our constitutional foundations, a clear-eyed upholder of the rule of law and a praise-worthy opponent of passion and prejudice.