You know it's bad when California's tres unpopular, washed-up screen star guv -- whose dad was a member of the Nazi party back in the day -- is using your state's "papers please" law as the butt of his shuck-and-jive before a crowd of college grads.
"I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during a commencement address at Emory University in Atlanta on Monday. "But with my accent I was afraid they would try to deport me."
Still, you have to admit, considering the Governator's Austrian buzz of a speech impediment, the zinger was pretty amusing.
The former loincloth-wearing embodiment of Conan the Barbarian has called Sand Land's SB 1070 a "mess." He also told Jay Leno recently, "First of all, let me just say that, as governor here, I would never do that in California."
But then, the Left Coast is hardly Cactus Country, even if it did pass the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994, which was subsequently killed off in the courts.
What can the nativist supporters of SB 1070 take away from Ahhh-nold's crack at AZ's expense? The same thing they can take away from the ridicule of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and other comedic outlets: Arizona's rep is dirt.
Yep, we'll soon be like one of those cheesy props that even a lowbrow yukster like Carrot Top can pull out of his box for an instant guffaw from the hoi polloi. Maybe Gallagher should start growing watermelons in the shape of state Senator Russell Pearce's head.
The toothless, racist crackers here in gooberville need to get used to it. And there's a worse part to being reviled as bigoted bumpkins -- people with money are going to start investing elsewhere.
That's already begun to happen, what with the boycott in full swing, and politicians and activists pressuring Major League Baseball to pull its 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, a potential $40 million loss.
So you can say, "Hasta la vista, baby," when it comes to Arizona's economic recovery.
Yet, the sandbillies who've brought about this situation with their single-minded devotion to ethnic cleansing are in complete denial.
For the foreseeable future, Arizona will be known as the land of meth labs, gila monsters and hatred of Hispanics. It could take a decade before the damage is undone, just as it was with Arizona's MLK Day fiasco.
