Open mouth, insert well muscled foot

Arnold has done it again:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking Tuesday to open an annual conference celebrating women's contributions to the state, dismissed California nurses who protested his health care policies as "special interests'' who are mad because "I kick their butt."

The offhand remark by the governor, in front of 10,000 people at the California Governor's Conference on Women and Children, drew a blistering reaction from the California Nurses Association, whose leaders said they will sue this week to stop Schwarzenegger's executive order weakening mandated nurse-to-patient ratios in the state's hospitals.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the 60,000-member nurses group, said Schwarzenegger's characterization of the group as "special interests'' was "completely insulting'' and particularly inappropriate at a conference specifically aimed at honoring women.

"He's here to talk about empowering women, when in fact he's ... gutting the (nursing) profession,'' which is dominated by women, DeMoro said. "He's horrendous when it comes to issues of health care and women.''