Obama Offered Schwarzenegger a Cabinet Position

It's been almost two years since former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said "hasta la vista, baby" to public office. And despite his now returning to Hollywood to star in "The Expendables 2," apparently you shouldn't count him out of the public arena yet. The Obama administration might call in Ah-nuld to become one of their cabinet secretaries.

Yes, really. How do we know? Because they already asked Schwarzenegger to do so once. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Schwarzenegger was approached by White House officials about a cabinet position around the time he left office in January 2011, according to people familiar with the matter.

The entreaty to the centrist Republican governor wasn’t completely out of the blue.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, who was in office for more than seven years and continues to promote his vision of “post-partisanship,” acknowledged earlier in his career that he’d welcome a cabinet post.

In July 2008, on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Schwarzenegger was asked whether he’d consider an energy-related cabinet position with the Obama administration, were Barack Obama, then a candidate, to win the presidency.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said he would, replying: “I’d take his call now, and I’d take his call when he’s president, anytime.”

So what was the post? No one knows yet. The White House has been contacted by Politico for comment, but nothing has resulted. However, given Schwarzenegger's love of green energy, the most likely position would have been something related to energy production. Whether that would be at the EPA or the Energy Department or even the Commerce Department is anyone's guess. John Bryson was nominated to the last post in 2011, and whereas Bryson was embroiled in controversy over his environmentalist past, it would be easy to see Schwarzenegger breezing through a confirmation hearing on the strength of his still exigent (but reduced) starpower.

Schwarzenegger's Hollywood ticket is, at the moment, quite full, so it's debatable whether this will ever happen again. Then again, you never know. As Arnold himself might say...