Celebrity status of California’s first lady

Re “Maria Shriver Recasts ‘First Lady’ as a Powerful Role in California,” Dec. 25

I was dumbfounded to learn that the citizens of California pay $576,000 a year for Maria Shriver to have a staff to promote her “celebrity” and her “Maria-ness.” That she has ridden on the coattails of fame and misfortune to reach her “Madonna” status is one thing, but, really, who elected her to be our material girl, and why are we subsidizing her blatant self-promotion? Like her husband, she has squandered any goodwill she might have enjoyed with such unseemly avarice and hubris. It’s time to cut her off the dole and let her eat cake with the rest of us.

DAVID DIEHNEL

Palm Springs

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Shades of Hillary Clinton. Are we getting “two for one?” I remember the GOP screaming that she was unelected and was poaching on the public turf, and with public taxpayer supported staff no less. If the Republicans had been as consenting with Hillary Clinton as they are with the governor’s wife, we wouldn’t be in such a mess with healthcare as we are today.

SELWYN BRENT

Huntington Beach

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If Shriver runs for and wins the governorship after the present incumbent finishes his stint, will that make Arnold Schwarzenegger the state’s First Girlie Man?

(The really intriguing thing is that she will probably run as a Democrat, and with her victory we would have the first instance in American history of a husband and wife serving in succession as a state’s governor and both coming from different parties.)

RALPH SHAFFER

Pomona