WHY BUSH SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO ARNOLD: Schwarzenegger may or may not secure a California governorship for the Republicans, which would surely be welcome at the White House. But regardless, he’s done Bush a big favor just by entering the race.

With Arnold in it, the California election will suck up a huge share of media oxygen for the next couple of months. Together with the Kobe Bryant trial, it’s likely to keep the press largely in Sept. 10th mode for quite a while.

That’s a big deal for Bush because it will delay the “quagmire” talk — or at least keep it from crossing a critical threshold in terms of volume — well into the Fall. By then he’s likely to be able to present useful WMD evidence and/or signs of progress in Iraq, that’ll defuse the critics. (If anyone notices — this White House release doing both got precious little attention). But in essence, Arnold is bridging the too-early-for-clear-progress-but-not-too-early-for-concentrated-media-bitching period. By the time the dust has settled from that, Bush should be in a better position to engage the issue, as he’ll have to be by January anyway.

So that’s the good news for Bush: The media may be dumb and negative, but at least they’re easily distracted!