California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s spokesman insists it was just an innocent coincidence.

San Francisco state representative Tom Ammiano, tongue firmly in cheek, says it was “a very creative way of exercising veto power.”

The facts are clear: A letter on the governor’s website  explaining his veto of a bill to help finance the port of San Francisco is three paragraphs long. The letters that begin the four lines of the second paragraph and the three lines of the third spell out an obscene comment. See below:

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear called it a “weird coincidence.”
“There are other messages that say things like ‘ear’ and ’soap’,” he said.

Websites like Gawker were incredulous, especially since Ammiano and the governor have a bit of a history. The representative shouted “You lie!” and other messages at Schwarzenegger when the governor crashed a recent Democratic Party gala, left-leaning Calitics website reported.

Ammiano took the veto incident as just part of California politics and focused on his plan for Wednesday: a hearing on his bill to legalize and tax marijuana to help shore up the creaky state budget.

The veto message is posted on the governor’s website.

For more Reuters political news please click here

Photo credit: Reuters/Phil McCarten (Schwarzenegger speaking at the Women’s Conference in California on Oct. 27)