SACRAMENTO — A scene from the governor's office: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his chief of staff were clearly annoyed about a person who kept making appointments and canceling them.
"I said, 'Look, you can't go and tell my people five times you're coming, you're not coming, you're coming, you're not coming.' I said, 'What's that? Are you coming or not?' " Schwarzenegger says, according to transcripts of conversations that were recorded by the governor's staff last year.
But there is one important omission in the transcripts put out by Schwarzenegger's office this week: The person being discussed is Clint Eastwood.
In the actual recordings, the governor clearly mentions Eastwood's name. But the transcript simply leaves it out. There is not even a notation that what the governor said was inaudible.
In virtually all cases, the transcripts also omit the names of the powerful aides speaking to Schwarzenegger.
So no one reading the transcript would know that the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, is the one who tells him that he has three "antelope" waiting to see him "in the other room," an apparent reference to three lawmakers. Elaborating, Kennedy describes them as "the weak and the ugly."
Asked Tuesday about that comment, Schwarzenegger press spokesman Aaron McLear said Kennedy did not recall making it. He also said the transcripts were prepared by a private service and there was no intentional effort to exclude any material.
The recordings were made by the governor's speechwriter, Gary Delsohn, in the first months of 2006. Audio files were then stored on Schwarzenegger's website, where security was lax.
Aides working for former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides copied the files from the site last summer. A six-minute excerpt was published by The Times in September, in which the governor described a Latina lawmaker as being "hot," a reference to her ethnicity. The Times recently obtained the remaining 3 1/2 hours of conversation.
In unguarded moments, the governor spoke critically of legislative leaders, who insist they aren't taking offense.
He described Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) as a "political operator coming from the union background."
On Tuesday, Nunez brushed it off, saying, "When I'm alone with my staff in my office, you should hear the things they say about me."
