Arnold does rings around Graz

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Many of the most heartwarming tales of the holiday season come out of Austria.

One thinks of Oberndorf and the little parish church where the organ broke down on Christmas Eve 1818 and Father Mohr and his organist Franz Gruber wrote a simple song that could be sung accompanied only with a guitar: "Silent Night." One thinks of the von Trapp family saying so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, adieu to yieu and yieu and yieu and scramming Nazi Salzburg for a new life in Vermont.

And now we have a third inspirational story from little Austria. One day, a few years after the Trapps skedaddled out of there, a young man was born near Graz. His name was Arnold and he worked out every day and went to America and became governor of California and one morning he had to make a decision whether or not to commute the death sentence of a multiple murderer called Tookie Williams. And he decided instead to let Tookie's execution go ahead.

And back in his old stomping grounds of Graz the politicians went bananas. In the old days, when some local lad made good and became Fuehrer of another state and started killing people, the hometown crowd couldn't wait to have a big ol' Anschluss with him. But times change and contemplating Arnold's reign of terror, his fellow Grazis decided they wanted to disAnschluss themselves from him. Outraged by Tookie's demise, Social Democratic and Green councilors and members of Parliament immediately took action. Or what passes for "action" in European politics these days.

They demanded Arnold's name be removed from the Arnold Schwarzenegger football stadium. They proposed it should be renamed the Tookie Williams football stadium. They launched moves to strip Arnold of his Austrian citizenship on the grounds that the death penalty is illegal in Europe, which is why a barbaric nation like the United States is ineligible for membership of the European Union. ("What a tragedy," as Americans always say when this is pointed out to them.)

"People have had enough of him," Peter Pilz, an MP in the Steiermark regional parliament, told the Guardian in Britain. "For us, he has committed a state crime."

Personally I have no feelings one way or another on the death penalty. But I'm strongly in favor of sovereign jurisdictions having the right to run their own criminal justice systems. That is why I rejoice at Arnold's reaction to the "threat" from Graz.

Writing to the mayor of his old town, Schwarzenegger noted that in the course of his gubernatorial term he would have to make decisions on other death-row inmates, too -- the next one comes up in January. So, wrote the Governor, "in order to spare the responsible politicians of the city of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium. ... I expect the lettering to be removed by the end of 2005" -- and, given that most European municipal workers are on vacation until the second week of January, that means the mayor, when he had the name taken down the day after Christmas, may have had to subcontract the job to any obliging Albanian Muslim refugees he could round up.

"The use of my name to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way is no longer allowed," continued Arnold. "Graz will not have any problems in the future with my decisions as governor of California, because officially nothing connects us any more." And just for good measure he returned the "Ring of Honor" he was given in 1999 for the "pride and recognition" he brought Graz.

That would seem to suit everybody. Graz will be free to rename its stadium after Tookie Williams tomorrow or the day after and the "state criminal" Arnold Schwarzenegger no longer has to live in dread of being formally stripped of his "Ring of Honor" in a humiliating resolution of the Graz council.