An American Lion

California State Capitol, Sacramento, California

Original Letter

When you can't get through to people using old-fashioned forms of communication, there's nothing wrong with resorting to a little creativity:

Did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office use a coded veto message to send the f-bomb to Tom Ammiano, soon after the San Francisco assemblyman made news by telling the governor to "kiss my gay ass"?

Enhanced using a rectangular "mask"

Schwarzenegger's people say no. But the X-rated evidence is hard to miss in a message that Schwarzenegger sent to explain why he was vetoing an Ammiano bill dealing with financing for the Port of San Francisco.

A straight reading of the guv's letter laments "the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration," and concludes, "I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time."

But a vertical read of the far-left-hand letters in each of the missive's eight lines offers a more blunt explanation: "I f- you."

Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Aaron McLear, insisted Tuesday it was simply a "weird coincidence." He sent us veto messages the governor sent out in the past with linguistic lineups such as "soap" and "poet," which he said were also unintended.

"Something like this was bound to happen," McLear said.

Maybe. But the veto message came after Ammiano called the governor a liar and shouted from the audience to "kiss my gay ass" when Schwarzenegger unexpectedly showed up at a Democratic Party dinner in San Francisco on Oct. 7.

Ammiano later called Schwarzenegger's attendance at the event a "cheap publicity stunt" that wasn't at all amusing, in light of the governor's cuts in social services, ordered furloughs of state workers and failure to act on some gay-rights issues.

The governor's veto letter was in response to Ammiano's AB1176 - a rather mundane bill meant to help San Francisco's port with finance issues. The "coincidence" was first picked up on Tuesday by the Bay Guardian newspaper.

Really, is polite discourse now dead everywhere? Can't you send someone a messageand have it mean what you really say? Apparently not. The sooner Governor Schwarzenegger realizes that California cannot be governed, the better.