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The past few months of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure will go down as a dark period indeed in the annals of impenetrably- accented- former-action- stars-turned-ineffective- legislator history. Between Warren Beatty's taunts, the rancid taste of crushing defeat, and the fate of a man whose thighs he once ogled in his hands, it's hardly surprising when we read a Radar report that Arnold is doing everything he can to sweep his latest headache a British libel suit under the carpet:

[British TV personality Anna] Richardson first became a thorn in Schwarzenegger s beefy flank when she was quoted in various news stories including a landmark Premiere magazine article headlined Arnold the Barbarian saying that the actor had pulled her onto his lap and pinched her nipple after a Dec. 2000 interview for her London-based show Big Screen When Schwarzenegger s team attacked her in an Oct. 2003 Los Angeles Times story about the then-candidate s wandering hands claiming that she d hopped on his lap, seductively cupping her breasts and asking What do you think of these? the 35-year-old vicar s daughter filed a libel suit against the governor and two of his associates.

Since then, we hear, the governor and his lawyer, Marty Singer, have tried every lowdown trick in the book to weasel out of the lawsuit even going so far as to refuse to accept the service of legal papers for nearly a year, according to a source close to Richardson. (We re told Singer only relented after her barrister, Graham Atkins, sent him at least three personal letters demanding that he take the case seriously.)


Schwarzenegger has also tried to distance himself from the suit, saying [staffers] were not acting with his knowledge or at his behest when they disseminated the slur.


We cannot condone the Governor egregiously turning his own loyal staff into human bullet shields, though we must admit we admire Singer's creative legal tactics, to be heretofor referred to in law school textbooks as the "Stick Fingers In Ears and Hum Dixie 'Til the Poofywigs Go Away" technique.