Surrender the will

A terribly incisive piece by Tom Junod about the most famous Governor in American history, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here's Schwarzenegger on Kabuki: “I’ve always been able to see ahead to the finish line when I’m negotiating,” (Schwarzenegger) told me one day. “It’s always been that way. I see it, and then I want to get there. I get impatient. In business, that’s not a problem. But in politics, a lot of people need to do the Kabuki, the song and dance. They feel cheated if you don’t let them. So now if you want to do the Kabuki, okay, you can do the Kabuki. We’ll get to the finish line eventually. It will just take longer.”

Joe Mathews, author of another incisive work on the guv, the book "The People's Machine," says the story rings true.

Read more from Joe here. He is leaving the LA Times to become a California fellow - a journalist on a stipend - at the New America Foundation.