Opinion: Arnold, Feeling Lucky, Dumps `Dirty Harry’ and an In-Law

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It must take some real brass ones to fire Clint Eastwood, as Arnold Schwarzenegger just did.

But it must have taken Eastwood and Bobby Shriver even bigger ones to stand up to the Governator.

Eastwood and Shriver – a Santa Monica councilman and the brother of Schwarzenegger’s frau, Maria – are the vice-chair and chair of the state’s park and recreation commission, appointed first by Gray Davis, and then by Schwarzenegger. That term is almost up, and Shriver said both men had asked to be re-upped to another term.

But both of them voted last month against a favorite Schwarzenegger project: extending the Orange County toll road to bisect San Onofre State Beach. The Coastal Commission sided with Eastwood and Shriver, and put a stake in the heart of the toll road project. [Shriver felt so passionate about it that he testified at the marathon Coastal Commission meeting.]

Now Schwarzenegger’s staff has notified the governor’s brother-in-law and his fellow acting star that their services will no longer be needed. Naturally the governor’s spokesman says one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, and that the governor’s just looking for ‘’fresh legs.’’

Legs? Really?

Maybe just the one that spokesman is pulling …